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News

2011-08-24T13:52:00.001-04:00

So I meant to write about this a while ago...but a few months ago I entered a photography contest for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, of which the winners would be featured in the Garden's 2012 calendar.

And I won!

My photo will be featured in December, and will be on display at the Garden in the spot where it was taken, which is the bonsai museum.

Here's the photo (click to enlarge to the full size):

In other news, I've started a new weekly column at the blog Hourglassy.com. It's written by the lovely Darlene Campbell, founder of Cambell & Kate, a line of white button-up shirts designed for busty women. The Hourglassy blog focuses largely on the pitfalls and successes in dressing an hourglass-shaped body (since most adult women's clothes are cut for a 14-year-old). My column is about life with a small waist and big chest, with a focus on positive body image and easy sewing alterations to make ill-fitting off-the-rack clothing fit a curvy body. I update every Friday.

Brooklyn Museum's "reOrder"

2011-03-21T21:27:00.001-04:00

After seeing photos of the Brooklyn Museum's new "reOrder" exhibit (March 4, 2011-January 15, 2012), I just had to go see it in person. The renderings online looked so massive, so larger-than-life, so...glow-y. And after visiting in person, the installation is far more stunning than the pictures even give it credit.

reOrder consists of huge fabric sculptures made of flat, round frames with heavy white fabric folded and stretched from one circular frame to another below it, at varying heights and diameters. Each fabric monolith appears lit from within with a slightly blue-toned light, so that they all give off a luminescent, mystical glow. They're set up in the 10,000-square-foot hall on the first floor, which is capped with a flat glass roof. The small, green-tinted panes of glass that checker the ceiling pair perfectly with the luminescence of the exhibit, and only add to the otherworldly environment.

Each structure is rooted to the floor with heavy-looking white bases, some of which have a bulbous protrusion encircling it at just the right height to use as a bench (which museum-goers were only too happy to do). The clunky bases coupled with the light umbrellas give the installation an overall feeling of being ethereal yet solid at the same time, an effect made all the more pronounced when standing in the center of the hall, craning one's neck upward at these floating, oversized sunshades surrounding you on all sides. It was like walking through a sparkling white forest, and felt, in a word, magical.

For you architects out there, the Museum is also displaying videos of the building process and the installation and assemblage of the exhibit within the hall, sped up into time-lapse clips. It's fascinating, to say the least (and can also be viewed on the Brooklyn Museum's website).

Whatever you do, do not miss this exhibit. (It'll be on display for 10 months, so you've got no excuse not to go!)

You can find more information on this and other exhibits at brooklynmuseum.org.

And here are some photos I took (which, due to my camera's increasing quasi-brokenness, don't really do the site justice):

Everybody go to the museum!

Thanks, crummy camera, for making this shot blurry.

This dad and his daughter were really sweet. Start 'em young (art lovers, that is)!

The right outer wall.

The left outer wall.

Review: AX Alternative Manga

2011-01-12T23:29:00.000-05:00

After reading a lot of mostly positive articles about this book, I checked it out from my local library (side note: I love that the Brooklyn Public Library carries this very adult manga!). And unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed.

Ax: Alternative Manga collects a slew of comics from the Japanese alternative comics magazine Ax, in the style of McSweeney's "Best American Comics" series. It consists of a sizable introduction and a collection of short comics, some of which are standalone tales and some of which appear to be excerpts.

While I'm always happy to see unexpected (and adult) manga translated into English, the content in this book was just not that great overall. There are a few titles that I liked, but too many were boring or nonsensical. Takato Yamamoto and Keizo Miyanishi's pieces, for example, were beautifully drawn, but I couldn't even get through them because they didn't follow a narrative and basically read like a stream-of-consciousness thing. I personally prefer my comics to tell some semblance of a story.

One complaint I read numerous times online is that the book as a whole has too much juvenile and gross-out humor, but this is definitely something I disagree with. Out of the 33 pieces, there are only about 3 or 4 that contain anything gross-out. Yes, these particular stories were pretty dumb and seemed like little more than an excuse for the author to draw penises, but they're hardly representative of the entire collection.

The stories that I enjoyed most were the furthest removed from the feel of traditional manga. Katsuo Kawai's simple line drawings more closely resemble the homemade mini comics you'd find in a local independent comic shop, and his brief tale about a woman's boyfriend leaving her for another woman is incredibly clever and elegant.

Toranusuke Shimada's thick black lines and bulbous shapes are positively fun to look at, and his fictional history of Eldorado motorcycles is one of the most engaging tales in the entire book. Kotobuki Shiriagari's "The Twin Adults" shorts are very clever and his drawings of the two little naked men are gently done in the watery brush stroke style of sumi (ink wash) paintings.

My two favorite pieces are by Shinya Komatsu and Akino Kondo (whose work also graces the cover). Komatsu's "Mushroom Garden" is illustrated in a highly detailed and magical Franco-Belgian style (think "TinTin" or "Asterix"), and the story of a mineral collector who switches to mushrooms is short and sweet. Kondo's "The Rainy Day Blouse" looks much more like traditional manga, but with perfectly smooth lines and lots of subtle roundness that gives it just a touch of an art nouveau feel. The simple story of a girl's new blouse and umbrella is also sweet and short with a hint of nostalgia. I will definitely be seeking out more of her work.

Now that I'm writing all this down, it sounds like there's a lot more that I like than dislike. However, that's because beside the stories I like a lot, I feel ambivalent about the rest. I don't like what's left, but I don't hate it (well, most of it) either. This collection is listed as "Volume One" on the cover, so I'm assuming Top Shelf will be publishing more. I look forward to picking up the next one at the library, but I would definitely not buy it, and overall there's just not enough good stuff for me to recommend this first volume.

NY Comic Con and Anime Fest Roundup

2010-10-11T14:22:00.003-04:00

This past weekend was the NY Comic Con & Anime Festival. For the first time, they combined the Con and the Fest. I was a little disappointed in that decision because I knew the comics portion would have a much larger presence than the anime (and I was right), but then I remembered that the Anime Fest sucked last year... There weren't that many vendors, there weren't any screenings or panels I was interested in, and it seemed smaller than the 2008 Fest. So I stopped worrying and got really excited instead.

And that was an excellent choice because the Con was awesome! Easily the best Comic Con yet (I've attended the last three years). There were tons of vendors that spanned so many interests...classic comics, manga, small press, publishers, gaming... The convention was incredibly well-organized (well, except that it was difficult to find the guidebook), the main dealers' floor was huge, and there were a lot of great panels. In fact, there were so many I wanted to attend that they ended up overlapping and I couldn't get to everything. Here are the panels I did attend, and my impression of them all:

Saturday:

"Comics, Graphic Novels, And Manga For Adults"
With moderator Martha Cornog (graphic novel columnist and librarian), and panelists Robin E. Brenner (Massachusetts librarian), Ryan Donovan (NYC librarian), Karen Green (Columbia University librarian), and Natalie Korsavidis (Farmingdale, NY librarian).

This panel followed two others about comics for children and comics for teens and young adults. Discussion focused mainly on the difficulty the librarians have in convincing their co-workers and patrons that comics are not just for kids, and the resulting fight they go through to get those comics on the shelves. All the panelists were very clear in their opinion that comics are just as viable a reading source as conventional books. What I mostly took away from the panel was that comics still have a stigma of being "kids' stuff" despite the existence of titles like Maus, Persepolis, and all the adult-themed manga out there, but there are adults in academic positions who are working to erase that stereotype. Yay for librarians! I also learned that 95% of the time, if you ask your local librarian to get a particular book or book series, they will actually do it. And if your library doesn't have any comics on the shelves, check their inter-library loan. Sometimes all the comics are housed at a central library.

"MARVEL Television Presents MARVEL Anime"
I almost skipped this, but I am so glad I went! Marvel has been working with Studio Madhouse (a really, really great anime studio) to create anime shows about Iron Man, Wolverine, and Blade. These are going to be real anime, created by a Japanese anime house, not an anime-style American show. They're even all set in Japan and have Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. In this panel, we got to watch the first full-length episode of Iron Man and see a trailer for Wolverine. Iron Man was...pretty good. It was a bit flat, both in appearance and action, but I still have high hopes for it as the series progresses. The one thing I really didn't like were the scene transitions. They weren't smooth and felt unnatural. It was things like, there'd be two people in a car talking for a minute, and the next scene would be one of them getting off a plane that just landed. What about all the time between the car and plane? Where'd the other guy go? It's not really action you want to see, but the sequence was still jarring.

The Wolverine trailer, on the other hand, looked amazing. The only trailer on YouTube is an older one that looks quite different. The Comic Con trailer was modern while staying true to the Wolverine aesthetic, whereas the YouTube clip is too stylized and looks dated (Wolverine has a huge Labyrinth-style David Bowie mullet!). Wolverine already has a back story rooted in Japan, so it's a natural fit for him to be turned into an anime. Both these shows will begin airing on the G4 network in 2011. (I don't remember when they said Blade would air.)

"Indie Cred - Why Indie Comics Matter"
With moderator Tracey John (UGO's Comics, Toys, and Collectibles Editor), and panelists Julia Wertz (author of Fart Party), Jason Little (author of Shutterbug Follies), Mike Dawson (author of Troop 142), and Alex Robinson (author of Tricked).

I only went to this panel because I freaking love Fart Party! (Seriously, go read it. It's not about farts or parties, I swear.) It was basically what I expected. The panelists talked about how they got into comics, how they managed to get picked up by large publishers, and the differences between working with small press vs. "real" publishing houses. I thought the tone was awfully pessimistic, though. Little at one point said comics "are not a career" when an attendee asked for advice for aspiring comic artists. God, what a downer. When I spoke with Faith Erin Hicks, another indie and online comic writer who I love, she was all happy and said she couldn't believe she's being paid to do comics, and gave advice that can actually be acted upon (i.e. publish your work online immediately).

"Unusual Manga Genres"
With moderators Erin and Noah from the Ninja Consultant podcast.

I wish this panel had been longer. The moderators were only allotted an hour, so they (admittedly) rushed through it somewhat. Erin presented a slide show of all the "weird" manga that's not published in Japan. She spent the most time on games and sports-based manga. Japanese readers apparently really like reading about boring sports. There are literally dozens of titles based on golf, and numerous ones about...badminton! And...curling?? There is probably a manga title for any topic you can think of. Wheelchair basketball? Check. Baking bread? Check. Board games? Check. This was a really fun panel.

On to Sunday!

"MARVEL: The Women of MARVEL"
With moderator Jeanine Schaefer (editor), and panelists Lauren Sankovitch (editor), Colleen Coover (artist), Rachel Pinellas (writer), Christina Strain (colorist), Sana Amanat (editor), Grace Randolph (writer), and Stepanie Hans (artist).

I got up early to catch this panel. It was about the women who work at Marvel, not Marvel's female characters. It was the best panel! The discussion didn't really focus so much on the fact that they were women, but focused more on how they all first got interested in comics, and how they all got into comics as a career. Interestingly enough, most of them came from unrelated backgrounds (architecture, publishing, musical theatre...). I asked the first audience question, which was how the editors got their jobs. Only one started out as an intern, and all but one of them came into it with no comic editing experience and were really taught the ropes once they got the job. I've wanted to work in comics for a long time now (applied to DC three times with no response), so this was pretty inspiring.

"Black Butler Screening & Panel"
Sigh... This was the only panel I didn't like. It was a screening of the first two dubbed episodes of the anime show Black Butler. This title has gotten really big in the U.S. in recent months. The comic it's based on has been on the NY Times bestselling manga list for the last few weeks. So I wanted to see what the big deal was. But oh my god this show is not funny! It's full of all the standard anime humor tropes, so I feel like it's nothing new. It's about a rich British child whose parents have passed away, and the butler who is supernaturally tied to him and is tasked with keeping the home in order and protecting the child. God, the fans of this show were annoying. Every time the child was on screen, girls in the audience would scream like they had crushes on him--and bear in mind that this is a 12-year-old character (Ew! Stop lusting after a prepubescent cartoon!). Every time the butler was on screen or said his catchphrase of "I'm just one hell of a butler," the entire audience would break out in cheers. This response also happened every time something "funny" happened, to the point that you couldn't hear the dialogue. Ugh. As much as I love anime, I have to say, I hate anime fans! I left after the second episode, as I had no interest in listening to the creators and voice actors talk about the show.

"The Changing Faces of Anime"
With moderator Join Evan Minto (of AniGamers.com).

This was a fun panel. Minto went through the history of character design in anime, all the way from Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy to today's American anime-style shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender. Minto narrated a slide show that went through character styles chronologically. The takeaway was that anime started out being influenced by Disney, and eventually came full circle to have American shows today highly influenced by anime.

Art Cake

2010-10-08T19:00:00.001-04:00

I found this great collection of pop culture-themed cakes on Flavorpill today. One of them was just so great that I had to publish it here:

It's a Mondrian rainbow cookie! I really want to try making this myself...

Oh, and here's the full article: http://flavorwire.com/123229/50-pop-culture-cakes

Modest Mouse at Williamsburg Waterfront

2010-09-15T11:44:00.001-04:00

Last night I went to see Modest Mouse play a show at the Williamsburg Waterfront here in Brooklyn. The show was originally scheduled for July, but three songs into their set that day, a massive lightning storm blew in and the NYC Parks Service cancelled the rest of the show. Luckily, Ticketmaster rescheduled for September 14. This ended up being better anyways, because it was sickeningly hot in July and the show started later. Last night, the temperature was a comfortable low-70s with a little breeze and the show began relatively early (doors at 5 p.m.), so I was able to get home and go to sleep at a reasonable hour.

As for the show itself, it was my favorite time I've seen them yet. The first time I saw Modest Mouse was summer 2003 as part of the free Siren Music Fest at Coney Island. I don't honestly remember that much about the show or what songs they played. The next time I saw them was at Irving Plaza in NYC about a year later, right before the album "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" was released. This was actually one of the best shows I'd ever seen at that point. As the new album was being promoted but not yet available for sale at the time, it was all new music to me. And they played so well that night! Everything was super tight and singer Isaac Brock was really on top of his game. Plus they played an encore that was almost as long as the set, so it turned out to be a pretty long show. When I finally bought the new album, I instantly recognized the songs they had played at the show, but it was actually almost a bit of a letdown because they'd sounded so good in person that the studio album paled in comparison. It stuck with me so much that I can still hear the live act in my head when I listen to the album today.

Last night's show was actually a bit of a departure from that Irving Plaza set I loved so much. I thought everything last night sounded much more loose. It wasn't messy, but it had an element of improvisation. All the songs sounded a bit off, a little more experimental than the album versions. It was also very loud, and the "big" parts of certain songs were played louder and louder. I wouldn't go so far as to call the show "epic," but it was pretty close. They had six musicians on stage and really took advantage of the instruments besides guitar, bass, and drums. An electric upright bass, banjo, pump organ, glockenspiel, accordion, and trumpet all made appearances throughout the night. I especially appreciated the trumpet, which was literally front and center on the stage, and stood out much more so than it does in the studio tracks. Also, the sound quality was surprisingly good for an outdoor show. Everything sounded very clean and you could pick out the details. As for the set list, they played a wide range of songs, a pretty even amount of stuff from all their full-length albums, plus a few appearances from some EP's. Since they don't currently have a new album to promote, I guess they had as much freedom in their song choices as they felt like taking.

I also need to point out how great I thought the lighting was. It being a rock show, there was of course fake smoke pumping out all night. But since it was so breezy, the smoke would immediately blow away if it wasn't constantly pouring out of the machines. This made it look like the band was playing in a storm--it was a really cool effect. Then you had a lot of backlighting, which made the bandmembers look like silhouettes in a cloud half the time. Bright colors were the lighting choice for most of the night, so the swirling smoke was colored, the silhouettes were colored, and the front of the stage would be another color. I saw tons of people taking sweet photos all around me, and it made me wish my cell phone took better shots (real cameras weren't allowed, natch). This added to the "epic" feeling I got from the whole shebang.

So, yeah, definitely my favorite Modest Mouse show I've seen to date. Here's the set list:

1. Gravity Rides Everything
2. Black Cadillacs
3. Satin in a Coffin
4. Here It Comes
5. Float On
6. Cowboy Dan
7. Dashboard
8. Blame It On The Tetons
9. King Rat
10. 3rd Planet
11. Tiny Cities Made of Ashes
12. Bury Me With It
13. Autumn Beds
14. Here's to Now (Ugly Casanova cover)
15. The Whale Song
16. The View

Encore:

17. Guilty Cocker Spaniels
18. Dramamine / Life Like Weeds
19. Baby Blue Sedan
20. Spitting Venom / I Came As A Rat
21. Alone Down There

What Is It About 20-Somethings?

2010-08-19T18:37:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading this infuriating article on the NY Times website about 20-year-olds and how we all refuse to grow up (read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine). This is only one out of dozens of articles I've come across in the last couple years, and I'm really tired of reading the same thing over and over: I know, Baby Boomers are awesome and we 20-year-olds are lazy bums. Enough already! Rather than launch into a rambling, raving rant, though, I'm going to pick out some points from the Times that angered me the most and respond to them.

1. The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.

My argument: As a 20-year-old who is competing for those jobs, this is an absolutely unfair assessment. I don't want an unpaid internship or grueling underpaid job, but oftentimes this is all that's being offered. I have a masters degree and more than four years of working experience, and yet I'm in a constant struggle to find a job that pays the bare minimum for survival. I just want enough to pay all my bills and put away 10% of my salary into savings. And I don't even have any student loan or credit card debt...but more on that later... And forget about benefits (health care? Who needs that?). In the course of my job search, I've seen dozens of job listings for unpaid internships and entry-level editorial assistant positions, only to discover, upon reading the full job description, that the duties required of the position go above and beyond what a reasonable person could construe as "intern" or "assistant" tasks. Knowing how desperate the competition is for jobs, particularly in this economy, employers know there will always be someone who will take these positions for little or no pay, simply because it's at least something. It's better to have an unpaid internship than a gap on your resume. A friend once explained to me that the reason there are no jobs for us young people is because the older generations, who should have retired by now, are still working. So no one's moving up in their current place of employment, and there's no space for anyone new to move in. So I blame this lack of real, long-term jobs among 20-year-olds on the people who destroyed the economy and now can't (or won't) retire to let the next generation in (and then of course those same people complain about how lazy we all are).

2. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year.

Again, does the writer think we like moving every year? Moving is a big expensive hassle. Taxes go up, rents go up, but our salaries get cut or lost. Young people are constantly moving because we can't afford it when our rents are raised but our salaries are still dismally low. Sure, homeowners who lost their houses should be pitied and should receive help, but if we're young with no savings and crippling student loan debts, and we can't afford our rent, well then we're just lazy and immature.

3. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch.

Again, not something I want in my life. But when job after job has no benefits and doesn't pay enough to afford a visit to the doctor, how can people possibly be expected to stay there forever? Additionally, what's that old phrase--last hired, first fired? Well with layoffs happening everywhere, that leaves pretty poor prospects for those young people in their first job, huh?

4. Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever.

Well considering that "masters degrees are the new bachelors" (apparently), we're staying in school far longer than any generation in history. Again, it's not a choice that is being made by us, but for us, due to the dictates of the employment industry. At this rate, eventually we'll all be expected to have PhD's!

5. Is emerging adulthood a rich and varied period for self-discovery...Or is it just another term for self-indulgence?

So we're told during our childhoods that we should follow our dreams and that we can be anything we want--but once we grow up and actually try to pursue that dream career, we're scolded and told that we should have a long-term job, wife/husband, and babies all by the age of 30. But it's simply not that easy to find all that! There are massive obstacles in the way that are, at least to some degree, out of our hands. It's particularly difficult to "grow up" when one has been in college through the age of 23, followed by six figures of debt from attending said college, and bleak job prospects in a broken economy.

6. But the expectation that young men and women won’t quite be able to make ends meet on their own, and that parents should be the ones to help bridge the gap, places a terrible burden on parents who might be worrying about their own job security, trying to care for their aging parents or grieving as their retirement plans become more and more of a pipe dream.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but once again, the broken economy is not our fault! We're being punished because people two or three generations above us thought it would be a better idea to fulfill their own greedy ambitions at the expense of the entire country. So enough with the wailing about how we're a drain on society and our parents. And let's touch on the "being unable to make ends meet" just one last time--the reason we have trouble making ends meet is not because we're just lazy. There are millions of people all over the US having trouble making ends meet thanks to a bad economy, widespread unemployment, credit card debt, and more. Unemployment benefits have been extended to 93 weeks--nearly two years! And I'm not saying that those benefits should not last for that long, but why is it better for a 30-year-old to depend on the government than a 20-year-old to depend on her parents? What's the difference?? Both ages can't make ends meet for a variety of reasons, but no one's demonizing the 30-year-old.

Last thoughts: I certainly don't advocate goofing off and living off your parents until the age of 30. But there are lots of other factors at play beyond sheer immaturity that aren't allowing 20-year-olds to fully "grow up." This whole article, and the ideas it's espousing, are the same generation gaps that have always existed. Old and young resent each other. The battle wages on. But I, for one, am sick of reading about it, and am sick of being demonized as lazy and immature. And, for the record, despite my current lack of a full-time job, I work my butt off at two part-time freelance jobs, have not received benefits or health care (even when I held a full-time job) since 2007, and somehow manage to pay all my bills each month without the aid of my parents. I was forced to move a year ago due to raised rent, fear every day that I'll need a hospital trip that will bankrupt me for the rest of my life, and worry that I'll never be able to afford a wedding, a child, or a house.

So yeah, give me a job or get off my back.

Book Review: I Don’t Care About Your Band

2010-08-16T10:16:00.002-04:00

Full title -
I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated

I randomly stumbled upon this book while browsing in a bookstore. The cover was cute and the title really caught my eye. After getting it from the library, I finished it in two days. However, that’s not to say that I “couldn’t put it down.” Rather, I breezed through it so quickly because I constantly wanted to get on to the good parts. Unfortunately, though, there weren’t many of those. This book was nothing more than a big disappointment.

I expected “I Don’t Care About Your Band” to be composed of a funny chapter devoted to each crazy boy author Julie Klausner dated. But the complete picture was more of a personal ramble that never concretely nailed down the men. Based on the description on the back of the book, I also expected it to have a witty, sarcastic tone. But the self-deprecation in “I Don’t Care…” wasn’t funny. It reads like a case of low self-esteem. Klausner spends more time talking about her insecurities and why she dated such duds than she spends discussing the duds themselves. And it’s no wonder she dated such losers—she acts desperate, jumps into bed with any guy who’ll have her, and displays a complete lack of self-confidence. It’s infuriating when Klausner notes that this or that man was so much hotter than she—especially since the photo on the cover proves that she is, in fact, very pretty and thin. It made me think that the men weren’t so bad after all, if only because Klausner encouraged their behavior by being so desperate and pathetic.

Unfortunately, most of the men are not fully fleshed out, but rather woven into Klausner’s self-description rambles. I wanted them to be distinct characters at the center of their own tales, but they were actually pretty boring. Only a couple come off as being truly ridiculous; the rest are just mild jerks—but, again, why should they have been anything more when Klausner was such a doormat? Those titles on the cover—indie rocker, hipster, porn star, etc, give the men too much credit. Her beaus are so normal and boring that whittling their personalities down to cliché labels just doesn’t work.

Klausner herself also isn’t much more likeable than the men she dates. She makes a lot of offensive and misogynist statements, such as claiming that bisexual women are just horny but bisexual men are “actually gay men,” and that women don’t maintain female friendships without backstabbing and competing with each other (and, as such, all women should have a gay male best friend). She also makes a crack at one point about the Holocaust not being real. I’m sure she thinks she was being funny and sarcastic, but the statement comes out of nowhere and doesn’t belong. Aside from its inherent offensiveness (whether joking or not), it just doesn’t make sense in the context of the story.

The only parts that really intrigued me are when Klausner discusses pop culture relationships, including Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog, and Pam and Jim from the show “The Office.” Kermit is the sensitive eternal bachelor, a musician who never bothers to settle down while every step of the way leading Miss Piggy to think he will eventually do so. This part actually made me get mad at Kermit! I’ll never be able to look at The Muppets the same way again. Jim and Pam represent Klausner’s thesis that all men want a woman whom no one else knows is pretty, possibly the only original idea contained in this book.

To be fair, there are some laugh-out-loud funny lines in this book, but they were few and far between. If I wanted to read a book about one woman’s self-esteem issues, I’d hang out in the Self Help section at the bookstore, not Humor.

fashion copyright

2010-07-28T19:59:00.010-04:00

Really interesting presentation about fashion copyright. It's kinda long, but really worth watching. I found it through my favorite blog of the moment, youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com.

I had no idea that there are no copyrights for clothing in the U.S. So all those Chinatown knockoffs would be legal if only they stopped using the brands' logos on the fakes!

Movie Review: "Public Sex" (2009)

2010-07-13T08:57:00.005-04:00

WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW

I watched the British movie "Public Sex" on the Sundance Channel last night. The US release really should have stuck with the UK title, "Dogging: A Love Story," because "Public Sex" is misleading. "Public Sex" does not focus on sex, rather it focuses on Dan, an unemployed journalist (HEYYY!) who wants to write an expose about "dogging"--the British practice of having sex in cars in a public space while others watch and sometimes participate.

Dan starts by simply researching dogging online, but soon his obnoxious room mate Rob brings Dan with him on a dogging excursion. Meanwhile, under the pseudonym "East of England Eight Inches," Dan strikes up a friendship with "Horny Geordie Lass," a person he meets in an online dogging forum. Horny Geordie turns out to be Laura, a pretty university student who explores the dogging scene to escape her overprotective father (though she never actually participates in the act herself).

Upon Dan's first trip to a parking lot with Rob and Rob's older girlfriend Sarah, Dan and Laura run into eachother without knowing that they've already met online under pseudonyms. The two of them awkwardly discuss dogging for a few minutes, and although Dan has a girlfriend, he invites Laura to meet again at a future dogging gathering. However, Dan ends up bringing his girlfriend Tanya to that gathering in order to "show her his research," but she is disgusted once she realizes what's going on. What follows is one of the funnier scenes in the movie, in which Tanya escapes Dan's car only to follow an older man into his trailer, where he and his wife serve her tea and explain that dogging saved their marriage (and ask if she'd like to see photos of their grandchildren while the wife is wearing a dildo, natch).

Tanya then decides to give dogging a try with Dan, much to his horror. Despite his curiosity, Dan is in actuality totally grossed out by the scene, and the act of performing public sex while other people jerk off (onto his car window, no less) makes him horribly uncomfortable. Tanya, on the other hand, likes it so much that she later tells him if he won't do it with her, she'll find someone who will.

The rest of the movie follows Dan and Laura meeting a few times more, usually at dogging events, until the film culminates at a huge dogging weekend in the countryside. By now, Dan and Tanya have broken up and Laura, after learning that Jim is East of England Eight Inches and catching him with his (now ex-) girlfriend, has dragged along Jim, a classmate who has a crush on her, to the weekend event. Jim, too, is not interested in dogging, so Laura ends up wandering off on her own. She's picked up by a large group of older men and the situation starts to turn dark until Dan shows up and takes her away, finally bringing the two together for good.

The best parts of the movie are the moments when people's true colors finally show. The awkward meetings between Dan and Laura; Rob crying and begging when Sarah indicates she prefers dogging to Rob; Tanya enjoying dogging while Rob halfheartedly fights it. The characters are truly what drive the film, not sex. Though there are plenty of prurient moments in the movie, including above-the-waist nudity and creepy sex scenes shot in night vision, those are nearly forgotten once you return to the main characters. However, I have to say that the love story itself is a bit convenient and cliche, so the dogging backdrop is what makes it different and interesting.

Despite the borderline weak story, I still really liked this film. There are lots of surprises and the characters all have depth. The story is sweet but still subtle, which presents a strong dichotomy against the stark and dirty dogging background.

vitamins for drunks

2010-06-11T13:58:00.004-04:00

"drinkwel is the first multivitamin specifically formulated for people that drink alcohol."

WTF??? I mean, it's basically just a regular multivitamin with some trendy additions like superfruits and antioxidants, but seriously?? And would people who drink to excess really invest in new-agey vitamins?

This whole neutraceuticals thing has really gotten out of hand. Just eat real food, people! And practice moderation! It's really that simple.

Movie Review: "My Darling is a Foreigner"

2010-06-10T22:02:00.007-04:00

Tonight, I scored free tickets to a Japanese movie called "My Darling is a Foreigner" at the Big Cinemas Manhattan (formerly the Imaginasian theatre). This was its American premiere, and was sponsored by All Nippon Air (ANA) and New York-Tokyo (NYT).

I've seen a lot of Japanese cinema, from Kurosawa classics to manga-inspired modern comedies. The manga-inspired modern comedies make up the bulk of the fare I get to see nowadays, though, largely because I get these free tickets from NYT on a regular basis. And as much as I love Japanese cinema, a lot of the modern flicks I see are silly to the extreme. The acting tends to either have a goofy, over-the-top quality (things like outrageous facial expressions responding to minor incidents, and a particular fake laugh that female characters always seem to do), or feels stiff and held back--even when someone is angry and the situation warrants animated acting, rarely does anyone raise his voice or yell. "My Darling is a Foreigner," then, came as a pleasant surprise. I expected it to be slapstick silly, and instead it was cute, touching, and, best of all, realistic.

"My Darling" is the story of the relationship between the Japanese Saori and her American boyfriend, Tony. Tony speaks perfect Japanese and is enamored with Japanese culture, though he doesn't always understand either the language or the culture. The young couple must navigate their relationship while dealing with the approval (or in many cases disapproval) from others who don't fully understand this Japanese-foreigner relationship.

Upon the wedding of Saori's sister, Saori and Tony each start thinking about where their relationship is headed too. At this very wedding, Tony meets Saori's parents for the first time. Tony had wanted to meet formally and follow Japanese custom, but Saori insisted it was no big deal. And at first it appears not to be. Saori's mother takes a quick liking to Tony, and the rest of the family immedately follows...except for Saori's father. He tells her that he cannot approve of her relationship with a foreigner. Saori opts not to tell this to Tony, and thus begins a troubled patch for their relationship. Saori soon becomes immersed in her work as a struggling manga writer, further pushing Tony away. Things come to a head when Tony disinvites Saori from a trip they had planned to the U.S. (where Saori was to meet his family for the first time).

So as to avoid spoilers, I won't describe any more of the plot. However, I will say that this movie had some of the best acting I've seen from a modern, young Japanese cast. Mao Inoue, who plays Saori, has large, expressive eyes, yet she doesn't fall back on sad puppy dog faces to express her character's feelings. Her shock at being disinvited from the trip is palpable through both her face and her stammering, and a scene of her crying upon Tony's leaving her behind is truly moving. (I'll be honest, I teared up a little--who can't relate to her feelings of sadness and disappointment??)

Jonathan Sherr, who plays Tony, is also great. He never rests on silliness even when asking Saori silly, amusing questions. He demonstrates a genuine curiosity and eagerness. Even the scenes that are downright goofy (such as Tony cleaning the house in Saori's apron with a hot pink duster) remain grounded in reality thanks to Sherr knowing just how far to take things.

"My Darling is a Foreigner" may be a romantic comedy, but it's still subtle, a rarity in this genre. The end of the movie does wrap up a little too neatly and abruptly, but the movie as a whole is touching without being saccarine.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that "My Darling" is playing on any sort of regular schedule at Big Cinemas Manhattan. This may be because this particular showing was part of the Nippon Eiga Series, which is sponsored by (and used as a marketing tool for) ANA, but maybe Big Cinemas will play it further once their current roster of films ends?

Also, anyone who likes Asian cinema should really sign up for NYT's emailing list. I get these free movie invites at least once a month. And the theatre just got swanky new seats courtesy of ANA. I don't know how or why I originally got onto this mailing list, but it is probably the most useful out of all the ones to which I subscribe (Urban Daddy, Flavorpill, 3rd Ward, Todd P, Thrillist...).

Bacon Ice Cream!

2010-04-17T08:55:00.011-04:00

For those of you not in the know, Shake Shack is something of a New York institution. It's a stand (or shack, if you will) that sells milkshakes (and burgers, fries, and frozen custard), and is known for its regular wait of an hour or more. It started with one location in Madison Square Park, and expanded not too long ago to an indoor spot on the Upper West Side, and more recently to Citi Field. There will also be two new openings this summer, according to the Shake Shack website. Though the UWS spot tends to have shorter lines (and it's open all year-round and you can feasibly eat there when it's raining), the Madison Square Park location is still king. Plus, after eating burgers at dozens of places in NY, I think Shake Shack's are the best in the city. But that's another story--the frozen custard is the focus today!
Shake Shack has a rotating roster of unexpected frozen custard flavors. You get a different one each day of the week, and the schedule changes each month. This month, flavors include such yummy-sounding fare as "milk & honey" (Thursday) and "carrot cake" (Sunday). I was there on a Saturday, for which the flavor was--ready for this?--"pancakes & bacon."

Seriously?

Skeptical as I was at first, I simply had to remind myself that I love bacon. I love it in drinks (the Spotted Pig's bloody Mary, made with bacon-infused vodka, is to die for), I love it in chocolate (try Vosges Haute Chocolate's dark chocolate bacon bar), and I certainly love it nestled next to a plate of pancakes at brunch--so why not as a custard flavor? I tried a sample of it before totally taking the plunge, and, much to my surprise, it actually tasted like pancakes and bacon! I don't know what kind of weird lab-grown chemicals went into the making of this stuff, but at that point I didn't care. I got a Concrete (custard blended with toppings of your choice), and kept it simple with chocolate fudge sauce mixed in (I said I love bacon with chocolate, didn't I?) and whipped cream on top. It was amazing. The sweet chocolate tempered the pancake and bacon flavor quite a bit, but you could still get a hint of bacon coming through, which is usually all you really need anyways.

I sat in the park eating my bacon custard and watching squirrels for a good half-hour, enjoying the fact that summer is finally almost upon us. (And it just wouldn't be a NY summer without a few more trips to the Shack to come!)

Zenkichi Restaurant: If Only the Economy Weren’t Doing So Poorly, I would Eat Here Every Week

2008-10-30T14:34:00.003-04:00

Tuesday night, the boyfriend and I attended the press-only opening party for Zenkichi restaurant, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was superb.

Zenkichi has actually been open since November 2006, so I’m not sure what last night’s festivities were supposed to be celebrating. In any case, the joint is classy. There is only a tiny, unassuming sign designating its location from outside. Rather, it looks like just a long, plain, wooden wall. Now, normally I’m anti-unlabeled establishments. I find the concept pretentious and unnecessarily highfalutin. But Zenkichi was so cool on the inside that I’ll forgive it this trespass.

There are three floors in the restaurant. The first floor is the “winter garden.” It’s full of bamboo stalks, stones on the floor, and a glass roof over which extends a leafy tree (outside). It definitely shoots for the “zen” look. There are also a few of their signature intimate booths in this area. The booths consist of tiny tables, for no more than three people (though two is really best), with dark wood paneling surrounding each and every little bungalow. It really allows for comfortable, private conversation. It also gives off a very romantic feel. This is the best date spot I’ve come across in some time.

The second floor had more of the bamboo stalks, plus many more private booths, all set up in a snaking maze of a layout. This, again, creates a deliciously intimate atmosphere. The third floor was roped off, but we took a peek, and found a banquet room, with what looked like more rooms cordoned off away from the staircase. I imagine it’d be a nice place for a special, relatively small celebration, like a milestone birthday or an engagement party.

As for the food, it goes way beyond sushi. In fact, they don’t serve sushi at all—rather, offerings consist of “Tokyo-style small plates.” Zenkichi also utilizes seasonal ingredients, so the menu changes every few months. The restaurant places highest emphasis on the “Omakase,” or chef’s tasting menu, which changes every five weeks, though individual items are available too.

Tuesday night, Zenkichi served a selection of cold items, warm ones, and dessert, as well as a lot of sake. My favorite cold item was the Sweet Duck Salad. I usually hate duck, but this dish was a definite exception. A thin piece of slightly sweet medium-rare duck was wrapped around a portion of shredded raw vegetables. I wouldn’t exactly call it a “salad,” because the duck was really the strongest flavor, but either way, it was flawless. The boyfriend’s favorite was the Maguro Carpaccio, which was actually pretty similar to the duck. A piece of raw tuna was wrapped around more shredded raw vegetables. Again, delicious.

As for the warm options, both of us adored the Pork Kakuni, a piece of seared pork belly so good that I don’t even remember what else was stuck on the toothpick with it. This salty little morsel practically melted in your mouth. Kind of a disturbing description considering that it’s a hunk of fat, but trust me when I say it is damn good. A close second was definitely the Saikyo Miso Black Cod, a piece of black cod in a really tasty marinade.

As for the sake offerings, we tasted four different kinds. I’m not usually a big sake person, but after last night, I think that’s only because I’ve never had any good sake before. My favorite was the unfiltered one, of which I don’t remember the specific name, but I could have sat there sipping it all night if not for the fact that I’m a total lightweight.

So final impression: Zenkichi is one of the rare restaurants in New York City that I think is worth its prices. The Omakase menu costs $48 per person, and that doesn’t include drinks; but even I, who have elevated scamming free food and drink to an art form, will be returning. And I recommend that next time any of you are in Williamsburg, and can afford it, you ought to do the same.

Zenkichi is located at 77 North 6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Check out their website at www.zenkichi.com for more information.

France Part 2

2008-09-03T10:32:00.004-04:00

It's another rainy day, so I managed to get back to the internet cafe.

Day 6:

We arrived in Normandy late last night and got dinner at the creperie. My galette was disappointing, though. There wasn't enough cheese, so it was kind of bland. Anyhoo, today we went to the market in the next town over, St-Valery-En-Caux. We picked up the most delicious melon I've ever had! It was so sweet and smelled so fragrant. We also purchased lots of veggies and cheese, including a heart of neufchatel, which I think is my new favorite. I'm going to bring some back to the U.S. because you can't buy it there, since it's made from raw (unpasteurized) milk, which is illegal in the U.S.

In the afternoon, I took a hike by myself along the top of the cliff, then down to the water to walk back at low tide. This is my favorite thing to do in Veules-Les-Roses. As it was low tide, you could peer into the tidepools, where I found tons of little sea anemones. The ones that weren't submerged in water closed themselves up into blobs, so it took me a while to figure out what the hell they were. At first, it looked like a colony of squishy (yes, I poked them) black blobs hanging under the larger cave-like rocks.

Day 7:

My mother had found a listing for a lumberjack festival in one of her tourist books, so we drove two hours to get there, only to discover that it was for the next day. My father and I sufficiently teased her for that mix-up. However, it afforded us a a stunning drive through the countryside, along which we saw lots of cows, a farm with miniature ponies, and a closeup view of the windmills that generate electricity around here.

That night, we had dinner in Quiberville, which is another small beach town in Normandy where my mom's cousin Cecile (and her husband Patrick) have a summer home. We ate at this little brasserie right on the beach, with a view of their cliffs. I had the best hamburger of my life there. First off, it was on this huge roll, about six inches in diameter, of delicious French bread. Then the meat itself was thin, but spread out to fill most of the bread, so it actually wasn't horribly filling since there was less meat than you'd think. Toppings included melted grated gruyere cheese, chopped onions, ripe tomatoes, and lettuce, topped off with an orangey, slightly spicy tomatoe-based sauce. So good.

Day 9:

My parents and I took a walk on the other side of the cliffs, and then kept going through all this farmland. We eventually reached this tiny little town (maybe a couple dozen houses total) called Manville-Es-Plais. We went into its old church, which had somewhat ugly modern stained glass, but when the sun shone, it reflected all these bright colors onto the floor. It was beautiful, like being inside a kaleidoscope. On the way back, we took a different route, where we found a whole herd of Normand cows. These cows are used for their milk, to make cheese. They're brown and white speckled and typical of this area. This particular herd was friendly, all coming over to the fence when we stopped to look at them. I fed them grass for a while and tried to pet them, but they were nervous and backed away anytime I reached my hand out without grass in it.

This day was also the Grande Marée in Veules-Les-Roses, which is the day with the lowest tide of the entire year. At high tide, this beach is covered in medium-sized rocks, which are really painful and difficult to walk on. At low tide, though, a huge sandbar is exposed. And during the Grande Marée, the sandbar stretches for what looked like a third of a mile or so. It's incredible. I took a walk on the sand at night, and then stood in the water, letting it rise higher and higher up my legs as the tide slowly came in. It was, for lack of a better word, magical.

Dat 10:

My parents and I took a drive to a town called Giverny, to go to Monet's house. It was awsome! Because it's the end of the season and it was rainy, there weren't that many people. You could walk through the house quite easily, which was decorated in exactly the way Monet had it, right down to the placement of his collection of Japanese Ukiyo-E prints (of which there were dozens) on the walls. There were even photos on display of him standing in the rooms, so you could see how closely the decor matched up. His gardens (yes, the ones in which he used to paint) were also open, including the pond that provided the imagery for his iconic Japanese Bridge and Water Lillies paintings. I was in heaven. Monet is my favorite of the "old masters," and I really, really, really love his work. Standing on his very bridge, looking at the same water lilly plants he used to paint...I don't even know how to describe the feeling. It was practically an out-of-body experience.

In the afternoon, we went to Rouen, which is the old city that houses the cathedral Monet also used to paint. It rained the rest of the day, so we just did some shopping and headed back. We had planned to go to the creperie again, but when we got there, it was closed (even though its door says it's only closed on Wednesday). Then we realized that everything in all of Veules was closed. French people usually go on vacation for the whole month of August, and most of the "residents" of Veules are actually French vacationers. so once they leave on August 31, everything immediately shuts down. It was almost eerie to walk the streets with so many lights off and shutters closed. Also, it was 8 o'clock by now, and we were really hungry, with literally no food we could to cook ourselves. So we drove back to St-Valery-En-Caux, and luckily there were a few restaurants open. We actually ended up having a really good seafood meal, too. I had this dish with muscles, salmon, cod, and sole all on the same plate in an orange cream sauce. The sauce was so delicious, especially on the salmon, and I was really happy to get some fish in me (I am on the coast, after all).

Day 11:

Today!

The high tide today is ridiculous. It goes all the way up the cliff, whereas normally there's at least 15 feet of distance between the water's edge and the cliff face. Also, the raised dock that sticks out into the water is usually too high to jump off, but now the water level is only about five feet down. I guess this is the fallout from the Grande Marée. I've never seen it like this in Veules before, though, so it's pretty cool. If only it were a bit warmer, I could go swimming. But even with the sun out, it's freeeeeezing here!

Two more days to go in Normandy, then one day in Paris before returning to the U.S. Then you can expect lots of photos (I've taken 364 so far! Only 91 left!).

France Trip Part 1

2008-09-01T05:06:00.004-04:00

I am in France, attempting to update this from an internet cafe, but the keyboard's letters are in different places than on an American keyboard, and I only have 45 minutes until the cafe closes for lunch (everything in France except the occasional restaurant closes for two hours at noon), so this may get cut short before I finish. In the interest of time, I'm only going to write about the days I actually did stuff.

Ok, let's get started...

Day 1: Arrival

I flew AirIndia because it was the cheapest flight I could get. The plane was kind of stinky and there were three babies around me. It was not the best flight I've ever been on. On the plus side, the in-flight meal consisted of chicken curry. Not bad. I arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport pretty much on time, met my parents (they flew on an earlier flight from Syracuse), picked up the rental car, and immediately set off for Basel, Switzerland.

Here are my initial impressions of Basel: The thing that struck me the most is that nobody locks up their bikes. Everyone rides a bike, and there are tons of bicycles parked everywhere, but none of them are locked up! Some would have locks connecting the front wheel to the frame, but then not locked to anything, just parked on the sidewalk. And many weren't locked at all. I was shocked. I guess people there don't have to worry about their bikes getting stolen. It makes me jealous. That would never fly in NY.

So other things I noticed: There is public art everywhere. There was a statue on practically every street corner, some modern and some classical. There were also these printed sheets of sheer fabric suspended between the buildings on narrow streets. I don't know if that's a usual thing or a specific festival, because there was no information about it anywhere, but it was really cool nonetheless. I also stumbled upon a random Richard Serra piece near a fountain in the center of the city. The other thing that was everywhere was graffiti. It was even on old, beautiful buildings and a lot of the statues, which I was not a fan of. As much as I like (good) graffiti, there's a code graf writers are supposed to follow, which is no doing it on historical buildings, art, or people's houses.

Day 3:

We went to the culture museum in the morning, which was having an exhibit on the color red, and how it ties into every facet of human culture (life, death, religion, etc), in all different cultures across the world. It was an absolutely riveting exhibition and was exceedingly well done. Every theme got its own separate room, which was then filled with red artifacts that ranged from traditional art such as paintings, to objects such as clothing and even a red Ferrari. Red was also used throughout each room just in the set-up alone. The black cubes that small items sat on, for example, were surrounded by a border of red light on the floor. In addition, every object was numbered, and every museum visitor was given a booklet that explained all the items in great depth. You would need hours and hours to read every description, but as it was, my parents and I had a 2 o'clock appointment to ride a boat around the city, so we gave up on reading everything after an hour and a half or so. Even without reading everything, though, the pieces on display were still incredible. Plus you get to keep the book, so you can finish reading everything any time you want.

So next we had lunch and went on a boat ride similar to NY's Circle Line tours. It took us up and down the Rhine, with an announcer explaining things in German (and English, thankfully). The northern end of the river was the historical area, with lots of beautiful old buildings overlooking the river, and the south was the really ugly industrial area. At the south end, though, were more swans in one place than I've ever seen in my life. There were dozens hanging around the riverbeds.

Day 4:

Drove back to France, to the Burgundy region. We arrived in Avallon, a tiny and adorable Medieval town surrounded by ramparts. We wandered around the town in the morning, then went to a castle in Chatellux in the afternoon. This castle has been owned by the same family since the 1300s. The owners during the French Revolution actually had to leave France to avoid being killed. The current owner gave a small tour. The guy was a wee bit grumpy (how French) and he said he's a member of the "Legitimiste" political party, which means he thinks the monarch should be reinstated. Mmmkay. He gave a tour of just a few rooms on the first floor. The two best rooms were the salon and the library. The salon had paintings of the men of the family throughout the centuries. The paintings themselves weren't in particularly good shape, but the stories about them were great. These men spent time with royalty, and one of the later ones was friends with George Washington.

Day 5:

We went to Vezelay, another medieval town surrounded by ramparts and a stunning view of the countryside. The town's cathedral was really nice. It was smallish, but had an usual amount of light. Usually, gothic cathedrals are dark and somewhat foreboding inside, but this one was quite pleasant. Apparently, it was designed so that on the longest summer day of the year, the light coming in the windows projects a specific pattern onto the floor. In Vezelay, my parents and I also stumbled upon the town cemetery, which had an additional section that contained older headstones, from the early 1800s. The old section isn't really being taken care of anymore, so a lot of the stones were crumbling and overgrown with grass and weeds. It was really neat.

After Vezelay, we stopped at these prehistoric caves in Arcy-Sur-Cure that have cave paintings from approximately 24-28,000 years ago. They're the second oldest cave paitings in the world. The cave formations themselves were absolutely incredible as well. I felt like I was walking through the "Caves" episode of "Planet Earth." And we were allowed to get surprisingly close to the cave paintings, of which there aren't that many, because in the 40s people went down there with oil lamps and got soot all over the walls. Then when they tried to clean off the soot, they destroyed 80% of the paintings. But the ones that are left consist of mammoths and prehistoric rhinos. Farther away from the main paintings was an additional small one, of a hand outlined by red. This was the one that struck me the most. It's near the ground, and is very small, so odds are it was a child who made it. It was really incredible. I could picture my own hand over top of it.

After the caves, we headed to Veules-Les-Roses in Normandy, where I've spent the last three days. But that will have to wait, because I am out of time. The cafe's about to close!

David Byrne is THE MAN

2008-08-21T01:23:00.005-04:00

Has everyone seen this? Apparently the city of New York was holding a contest for new bike rack designs. (You can see the finalists here.) So David Byrne was slated to be one of the judges, and he randomly started doodling his own bike rack designs one day, showed them to the committee, and they told him he could have them built and put up! No questions asked, no red tape, they just let him go to work! Crazy! They went up at the end of July. You can see photos of the new racks on Gothamist and the original Byrne doodles on his blog.

They're not the most functionally-shaped bike racks I've ever seen, but they are designed per their appropriate neighborhoods. Also, if we're going to have bike racks that can only accommodate one bicycle at a time (as most of the proposed designs do), then they might as well be attractive. The racks will only be up for a year and then will be sold as art pieces. I can't wait for them to get all grimy with stickers and dents and old locks chained to them. Somebody remind me to go take photos of them a year from now.

P.S. Here is the "hipster" rack from my very own neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn:

Sweet!

(Photo courtesy NYCDOT)

couture BLAH

2008-08-20T11:01:00.011-04:00

Living in New York City, I see "fashion" everywhere I go. I used to be somewhat into it, because it is no doubt a form of art. However, since there's not exactly an abundance of nice magazine shops or newsstands in Syracuse (much less Binghamton), the most exposure I ever got prior to moving here was the pages of "Marie Claire," "InStyle," and their ilk.

Since moving to NYC, and since commencing my attempt to work in the field of magazines myself, I've read a lot more "serious" fashion rags. In addition, I see actual stores selling the stuff from the pages of those magazines, occasionally get to see pieces in action during NY Fashion Week, and probably see women wearing the stuff on the streets regularly without even realizing it. However, the dire seriousness with which these upscale magazines treat fashion really unnerves me. It's gotten to the point that I no longer pick up fashion magazines at all, not even the ones whose photography I really like, because I can't stand sludging through all the pretentious, snobby articles, especially the ones demanding that I buy the season's new "it" item--every damn season! How are these items "must-have" if I only must have them for three months??

The fashion industry is racist, sizeist, and elitist. How does clothing, of all things, command such respect? Why do people (allegedly) quake in their boots when Anna Wintour enters a room? How do designers justify charging hundreds of dollars for a plain white tee (and why do people pay it!)? How can any industry that considers Rachel Zoe a celebrity (much less an asset) be taken seriously?

Ok, enough with the ranting. The point is, some part of me still likes the idea of fashion as art, which is why the Metropolitan Museum of Art's fashion gallery is always the section I hit up first when I get there. Currently, the Met is exhibiting "Superheroes: Fashion And Fantasy." Now, being the comic-obsessed little nerd that I am, I thought, Comic books and fashion together? Awsome!

But man, was this exhibit disappointing. It's not the exhibit itself that disappointed me, though. On the contrary, I thought the setup was fantastic. They had costumes from the original Super Man movie (!), Batman Returns, Batman: The Dark Knight, the original Wonder Woman tv show (again, !), and others. Then there were couture pieces from the likes of Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gianni Versace, and John Galliano that were "influenced" by the superhero costumes.

Here's the thing that bugged me: The couture pieces less "referenced" the superheroes, and more blatantly ripped them off! To be truthful, some weren't that bad. The couture pieces related to the X-Men were not obvious homages. The superhero used as example was the movie version of Mystique (Rebecca Romijn's blue, scaly character), while the designer pieces included feathers, metal, and rubber. The centerpiece was a technicolor feathered mermaid dress with a gold metal plate over the stomach. Likewise, the costumes that were related to Ghost Rider and The Punisher included dark, almost violent imagery, such as this cheeky motorcycle-themed ensemble:

The Superman, Batman, Catwoman, and Wonder Woman costumes, however, were not the least bit original. Check this out:

This is a piece from Rossella Jardini for Moschino. Changing Superman's S into an M does not make this an original idea! I see the parallels between Superman and branding, but this is a too-obvious way of pointing it out. How much thought really went into this? It's exactly the same as Superman, right down the the Clark Kent eyeglasses and the little spitcurl in the center of his forehead.

Here are Wonder Woman and Batman/Catwoman:

The Batman and Catwoman "references" bothered me the most. They were the least original pieces of clothing there. Add ears to the costume above and it would be Batman. Some of the couture pieces actually included bat-shaped harlequin masks. Catwoman was just as bad. Take Michelle Pfeiffer's "Batman Returns" costume, erase the white stitches, and you'll have the couture pieces. This all seems very lazy. And practically illegal. What about copyright? Why is it acceptable for high-end designers to rip off pop culture icons, but shops in Chinatown get raided for selling counterfeit handbags and Forver 21 gets sued for making cheap knock-offs?

Now I can add "hypocritical" and "unoriginal" to my list of angry adjectives above. The more of the fashion world I'm exposed to, the more I disdain it.

so stylish...

2008-07-20T22:29:00.004-04:00

Remember that entry I wrote about the NY Tattoo Convention? I mentioned that someone from a Japanese fashion website stopped me in the subway that day to take my picture, but when I went to the site, it was all in Japanese so I couldn't find my photo. Well Dave Wallin from Tattoo Culture (he did my back piece) happened to find this here blog, and apparently he reads Japanese well enough to find THIS for me. Sweet! I'm the biggest photo and I'm at the top of the page! And just in case that link ever stops working, here is the specific photo:

I bought the dress on eBay. It's handmade from one of my favorite eBay stores, Lynn's Rags. The skirt portion is from a vintage dress, with new spandex fabric for the top. I added the strap around the neck so that it actually stays up (plus I need to be able to wear proper undergarments). I love this dress! I should go thrifting for funky old dresses so that I can make these myself.

NY Phil in Prospect Park

2008-07-15T21:45:00.002-04:00

Monday night, I went to Prospect Park to watch the New York Philharmonic for free. It was fantastic! Susan, Patrick, and I rode our bikes there, first of all. Of course, this once again proved to me that New York City is the most bicyclist-unfriendly city in existence. There are barely any bike lanes anywhere. You're taking your life into your hands every time you want to go for even a short ride. I was, however, pleased to discover that Prospect Park, my second favorite park in New York (after the Brooklyn Bridge Park), is completely car-free! I just never realized before, but then Patrick told me such was the case. I'll have to go riding there more often now.

Anyways, the three of us brought blankets and picnic food, and met up with some other people who'd done the same and had already staked out a good seating area behind the center speaker. We couldn't see the stage very well from there, but we could hear it really well, which I think is more the point. The place was packed, too, so we may have had trouble hearing the music elsewhere, with all the chit-chat going on throughout the crowd.

I didn't pick up a program, so I don't know the names of the music the Phil played, but before starting, they did offer audience members the opportunity to text in (as in on a cell phone) their choice for the encore song (Do I detect an attempt to engage the young'uns here?). The choices were a theme from "Carmen" and an apparently less well-known French song (in honor of Bastille Day!). Unsurprisingly, the audience chose the "Carmen" song.

The performance was absolutely magical. Possessing little knowledge of classical music, I can't really critique the performance much (though it sounded just lovely to me). I can, however, describe the atmosphere. First of all, the sunset was brilliant. It was partly cloudy, which made for some really nice sky formations. The clouds maintained a dusky blue shade, and as the sun set, a bright pink and orange slowly overtook their undersides until the sun completely set. There's too much light pollution in NYC to ever see stars, but the moon was close to full and brighter than I'm used to seeing around here. Then once it was dark, fireflies came out! As I understand it, fireflies tend to prefer long grass and foliage, so it was a real treat to see so many of them mingling among the crowd. The temperature was also perfect: It was just cool enough to get away with long pants (which means no mosquito bites!), and not terribly humid. Now imagine all this with the NY Philharmonic playing in the backdrop. At one point, I said, "I feel like we're in a poem."

And then...

FIREWORKS!! YAY!!! These were really good ones, too (though they seemed unusually low to the ground...). The best was the very end, when firework after firework after firework just kept coming. These weren't the giant, loud, round ones. They were smaller clusters that fanned out when they exploded in the air; and it went on for what seemed like even longer than a usual finale. What a fantastically perfect end to the night. Yay summer! There's so much free stuff to do! Go here for a schedule of other Prospect Park activities (I especially recommend catching indie-rock band Deerhoof this Friday night).

WATCH THIS

2008-05-20T20:17:00.001-04:00

Holy crap this is amazing:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

NY Tattoo Convention

2008-05-19T19:25:00.004-04:00

After attending the monster event that was the NY Comic Convention a couple weeks ago (go here for my "official" review), the NY Tattoo Convention that took place at Roseland Ballroom this past weekend was really disappointing. For one thing, the venue was too small. I expected it to be extremely crowded (as all conventions inevitably are), but there was barely any walking space between the aisles to even begin with! In addition, Roseland being a traditional concert hall, the stage is in the same room as the "hall" where the booths were set up. So you not only had booths crammed into too little space, but you also had a massive crowd of people milling around the stage area, which afforded even less space for walking around.

The second floor was just as bad. It's not a whole floor--just a balcony that wraps around three quarters of the room with (again) little walking space between the booths and the railing.

As for the vendors, I was impressed by the distances some of the tattoo artists travelled to be here. There were a number of tattooers from Europe and even a couple from Japan and Taiwan. But I was disappointed that there weren't more vendors selling stuff. I expected there to be art, books, jewelry, clothes... But there were only a handful of booths selling more than tee-shirts. I did end up buying one print by someone named Michael Brown, but he wasn't at the booth, there was no business card, and his name is not on the list of vendors on the Con's website; and with a name like that, I doubt I'll ever find any information on the guy.

I'm not in the market for a new tattoo right now, so I actually got pretty bored after only being there a couple hours. I had planned on making a day out of it, but with nothing new to look at and not even any music or bands to listen to (you'd think that a concert hall would take advantage of its own facilities, but I guess not...), I headed out pretty quickly. I didn't even take any pictures. Even if I had found people whose tattoos I really liked, there just wasn't enough space to photograph them well without dragging them to a more open area (like the bar! Hmm... maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all...).

Well, at least admission only cost $18 and a I got a few free stickers and a matchbook out of it.

Oh yeah! And on the subway ride there, this guy took my picture for a Japanese fashion website! Oh no! But I just went to the site and it's all in Japanese! I can't even find my own photo! Awww... Well if anyone out there can read Japanese, let me know if you find me on www.apparel-web.com/trend/cafeglobe.com/fashion/streetsnapny/usa

Happy Easter!

2008-03-20T13:09:00.004-04:00

Just found this picture on Cute Overload and had to share it here:

"Peep show." Heehee...

kiwiberries

2008-03-19T11:42:00.007-04:00

I was in my neighborhood overpriced health food store the other day (I needed Japanese buckwheat noodles and Chinatown is too far away for a grocery run). And they had these weird fruit that I'd never seen before called kiwiberries. Here's a picture:

(from nzkiwiberry.com)

And here's a photo from phronesisaical.blogspot.com that shows their size:

They look like mini hairless kiwis. I assumed they were a hybrid of kiwis and grapes, but it turns out they're a real fruit, just some cousin of the furry kiwi I'm used to. They're also apparently really good for you. Check it:

(from kiwiberry.com)

I thought they were a bit steep at $4.99 (you only get 8 or 9 in a package), but you can just pop them in your mouth like grapes and the thought of eating kiwi without having to peel it really appeals to me, so I bought them anyways. But blech! What a disappointment! They're much more squishy than a regular kiwi--they feel like an overripe peach in your mouth. And all the delicious tart that kiwis have is completely nonexistent. These things are way saccharine. I'm going to stick with my 4 for $2 hairy kiwis.

go me!

2008-03-11T16:11:00.004-04:00

I have two new posts up at AnimeIntro today because I'm just that good. (kidding!) I'm hoping the latter one will generate a good deal of debate, as it concerns fansubbing vs. file-sharing vs. piracy, so everybody please clicky clicky.

In other news, I may be getting a press pass to next month's New York Comic Con thanks to AnimeIntro--sweet! I'll obviously be writing a formal blog about it there, but some more personal reactions may surface in here. So far the only events I've ever managed to get into with a press pass have been free admission to museums.

blogging fun

2008-03-06T11:13:00.005-05:00

New post at animeintro.

Also found this fantastic artist yesterday. David Horvitz does all kinds of conceptual things that require some serious audience participation. For one thing, he's taking one photo of the sky every day for this entire year. He'll mail them to you for free. I signed up yesterday. Here is yesterday's sky (it's in NYC):

My favorite thing he does is offer for people to pay him a certain amount of money, which he'll then use to go to a specific place and mail you an item. Most of the options are big (expensive) trips to foreign countries (which I totally wish I'd thought of first!), but some are as small as giving him $5 for him to mail you one of his secrets.

I have two favorite cheap ones. One is giving him $10 to write a letter of apology to someone he knows. He'll send one copy of the letter to its recipient and one to you. He has an example of a letter on his website. This letter is really simple, but so touching for some reason. So far, 12 people have bought apologies. I think this is absolutely genius. It's incredibly voyeuristic, but also sort of vicariously relieving. Even if you're too scared to make your own random apology, you can be part of someone else's. I think I might purchase an apology letter in the coming days.

My other favorite is for people to pay him a dollar to think about them for one full minute. Twenty-one people have bought a minute of time, by far the largest number of people to participate in any of these projects. I think this is very telling. People are actually so full of themselves that they're willing to pay someone--a complete stranger no less--just to think about them. But on the other hand, a couple people paid David to think about someone else. Someone named Jim Darrough paid him to think about his step-mom who had passed away four days prior. Quote:

I thought about Jim Darrough's step-mother, Arleen, who passed away on February 24th, 2008 at 3:32 am Pacific Time. Jim was holding her hand at this time. I thought about Arleen from 1:18am to 1:19am on February 28, 2008 in New York.

Ok, that's actually really moving. As is this one:

I thought about Luca Kunz's mom who is in a hospital in Switzerland from 3:12am to 3:13am on February 29th, 2008 in New York. I went a little over a minute to make it stronger.

People love their families so much that it helps them to know that a stranger knows who the family member is, and is actively thinking about them.

I think that the entire body of work just speaks to the interconnectedness of everyone on Earth. And it's as easy as dropping an envelope into a mailbox. Maybe that's too obvious of an explanation, but I think it's rare that you see such a blatant physical manifestation of this. I look forward to reading more about David's exploits.

bob loblah's law blog

2008-03-04T14:08:00.005-05:00

I was recently hired as a featured blogger for animeintro.net, and my first post is now up. I'll be posting every Monday and Thursday. It's a new website, so it doesn't get much traffic yet and I pretty much have to create my own readership, so if any of my loyal readers here either care about, or have friends who care about, anime, manga, designer toys, Japanese fashion, and other offshoots of Japanese pop culture, please pass on the link :]

The blog cover page.
My current post: The Oscars Hate Anime

I'll probably be providing a link here every time a new post is up for the next few months, but don't worry, it'll only be a short little sentence each time.

Oh yeah, and the post went up yesterday and I already have three comments! Yay yay! So exciting!

GASP!

2008-02-21T17:36:00.004-05:00

OH MY GOD I WANT THIS!

It's graffiti artist Der's contribution to the new French Dunny series. The rest are coated in your standard crazy cool paint jobs, but this one is actually a little French dude! He's holding a little baguette and wine bottle and wearing a beret! Awwwww... I want I want I want!

Kazuhiro Okamoto’s “Translucent”

2008-02-21T16:34:00.004-05:00

I’ve been consuming comics like crazy lately, but the titles I regularly follow have been coming out too slowly. So I decided I need to add another new series to my palate. I really want something different, though: no high school romance or boy-on-a-quest stories. Last week, I picked up the first two volumes of Kazuhiro Okamoto’s “Translucent” (from Dark Horse Comics), an unusual story that seemed promising.

“Translucent” focuses on 14-year-old Shizuka, who is afflicted with “translucent syndrome,” a disease that makes her body “see-through.” It affects each person differently, with some people being completely transparent all the time and some (like Shizuka) regularly shifting from visible to varying degrees of translucency. Emotions also affect the syndrome, with negative feelings and stress causing Shizuka to go completely transparent and happiness causing her body to return to normal. If someone with translucent syndrome remains completely transparent for two weeks, it’s likely she’ll stay that way forever.

“Translucent” was a promising concept in theory. An adolescent girl with an unusual disease should allow for some entertaining drama. But in reality, the series falls completely flat. For one thing, there isn't enough attention given to the disease itself. We’re repeatedly told that there’s no known cause or cure. And that’s it. I can suspend my disbelief enough to ignore the scientific impossibilities at work here, but wouldn’t there be people studying this disease? Shouldn’t Shizuka at the very least exert some effort into understanding it?

For another thing, the art is totally unimpressive. The characters aren’t detailed enough to tell them apart. Shizuka’s friend Mamoru is supposed to be the most beautiful student in the entire school, but the only difference between her and Shizuka is their hairstyles. Bodies and body movement are also rendered extremely stiffly.

I could get past the amateurish art if the story itself was well told, but, unfortunately, it’s not. Problems wrap up much too simplistically to be enjoyable. In the first volume, Shizuka’s body turns completely transparent, so she has to move away to be close to a translucent syndrome specialist. But a special parting gift from Tadami makes her so happy that her body returns to normal, so the doctor tells her she only has to visit once a month and Shizuka returns to her old school. This quick fix and lack of development is unsatisfying.

There also appears to be no overarching storyline. This story really needs a concrete direction. I thought Shizuka’s desire to become an actress despite her condition (which develops after her successful drama club performance) would be the spine of the story, but it’s more of an afterthought, really, happening concurrently to the plot rather than driving it.

I actually ended up returning these books to the store because they’re so unsatisfying. It’s really disappointing to see such a creative theme executed so poorly. Next time I want to try a new manga, I’m going to read the whole thing in-store before buying it.

luuuuuurve

2008-02-12T12:17:00.001-05:00

I found yet another artist in my internet travels with whom I've fallen in love. Audrey Kawasaki's paintings are STUNNING. She paints these charming art-nouveau inspired wispy girls on wood. The girls have oversized, incredibly expressive eyes and juicy lips, an obvious anime/manga influence. Most of the figures are transparent, so you get to see the woodgrain through them, which gives the paintings a natural, warm feeling. Audrey also retains a sense of edginess by incorporating explicit and metaphorical sexual imagery, as well as the occasional skull or animal skeleton.

Here is a big ole' image dump of some of my favorites from her website:

Audrey currently has a solo show at the Copro Nason gallery in Santa Monica. I desperately wish I could be there. And even though the show only opened three days ago, all her prints and originals are already sold out. All her prints in her personal website's store have also been sold out for some time now. Curses! I really need to take a trip to California one of these days to check out their art scene. Goodness knows there's no shortage of local talent here in New York, but the art establishment in Cali seems more lighthearted, varied, and less elitist, if I'm basing my impression on the art alone. Bits of California culture in general (skateboarding, movie-making, pop culture...) seem to be allowed (embraced?) into the art scene there. For someone to be big in New York, their art has to be Very. Serious. It's like... lighten up! You'd never see something anime-inspired in Chelsea. Maybe Brooklyn, though... Good thing I live there :]

heehee

2008-02-06T14:04:00.001-05:00

Ok, this cracks me up to no end:

It's a vinyl toy designed by Amanda Visell. Its name is "Baby-Eating Crocodile."

HA!

And here are two illustrations from her website to accompany it:

HILARIOUS!

The figure was originally part of a multi-artist show at Gallery 1988 in LA, and now the whole series of toys are being released as a blind-box set. I think the set as a whole is kind of meh, though, which is especially disappointing given the awsomeness of Visell's contribution to the collection. As an art show, all the different styles may work, but as a blind-box set, there's not enough cohesion. And it's not just the art styles that differ wildly, it's also the level of detail. The individual boxes are $7.99 each, which is about average (i.e. expensive as hell), but I wouldn't want to pay that for (or even own, for that matter) a couple of these.

Anthony Ausgang's Clean One, for example, features bright, fun colors, but the character's lack of detail gives it a flat and boring look overall. Peter Gronquist's Stella and 'Roo is also unsatisfying. There's a seem right down the center of its tummy! What's that about? Who thought that was a good design choice? The colors, too, are bland. Designer toys are usually immaculately put together and cleverly colored, so this one looks cheaply made by comparison.

On the other hand, Greg Simkins' Scurvy Nevil is highly detailed and intricate (not to mention, ADORABLE). I covet this little trinket like nobody's business. Joe Ledbetter always comes through with amazing toy creations, and his Ledkin and King of the Deadbeets are no exception. This is how you do mock 2D. The creatures, being actual toys, are obviously physically three-dimensional, but his heavy black outlines and solid, stark color blocks give the little guys the feeling of being drawings on a page.

About half of these toys are really creative and weirdo, while the others aren't particularly special. And even though they're sold as a set, none of them match. They're better as singular pieces; but in that case, I don't want to shell out eight bucks in the hope of getting a Joe Ledbetter or Amanda Visell toy, only to end up with some ugly thing I don't want. Let's face it, $8 is too much to pay for a three inch chunk of plastic anyways (not that it's ever stopped me before...), so if I'm going to actually pay that, it has to be for something unique and clever whose design looks like it received a lot of work. The odds of getting that in this case aren't high enough. My advice? Wait a couple months, then buy them pre-opened on ebay.

Do your civic duty, damnit!

2008-02-05T12:25:00.001-05:00

I voted today.

Go Obama!

(Poster by Shepard Fairey)

tattoo part deux

2008-01-30T12:29:00.001-05:00

So! The tattoo was the most excruciatingly painful experience of my entire life. I think I'm definitely done with the tattoos for a while. Dave did an amazing job! The birds have a very painterly look to them, which is exactly what I was going for. Joe also says he's never seen such a realistic tattoo, if that's any indication. I'm really, really happy with it. It hurt SO BAD, though, especially when Dave was working on my spine. The whole tattoo took about four hours and I don't know how I got through the whole thing without whining or crying, but I did. It also bled a lot, which was kind of icky.

The irritation and pinkness around the tattoo hasn't entirely faded yet, so I'll have better photos up in a couple weeks, but for now, here are these ones:

Just the black outline.

Another angle, so you can see the bird on my shoulder. He's my favorite.

The finished product. It'll look a bit lighter once it has completely healed.

GASP!

2008-01-24T13:42:00.002-05:00

GASP! I want these!

They're toys! Made of wood! And they're adorable! And Japanese! (And made by Takeji Nakagawa.)

AWWWWWW!

LITTLE WOODEN SAMURAIS!!

new tattoo

2008-01-22T13:50:00.001-05:00

I'm getting a new tattoo this Sunday (but shhh don't tell my parents!), so I decided to chronicle the process here. I'm getting a small flock of birds on my back. There will be five birds in all, starting with one standing at the lower left corner (like at my waist) and the last one on the back of my right shoulder. I'm specifically using a royal tern for the breed, because their wings take on some very sharp angles when they fly and it looks really cool. (P.S. I'm not just getting this done for vanity; the image does have a meaning for me, but it's private :P )

Here are the photos I took from Google images as reference:

They'll be about three inches tall on my back, and will consist of a light black outline with all the inner shading and color having no black linework, and an overall painterly, wispy look.

I'm getting it done by Dave Wallin at Tattoo Culture in Williamsburg. At first I planned on going to Saved Tattoo, but they have turned out to be totally elitist and overpriced. My room mate has been trying to get an appointment with them for months and they won't even give her the time of day. When I went, they told me the tattooer I was interested in is currently in Copenhagen, and then told me to contact him through MySpace (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate MySpace?). I can't even get a real e-mail address?? Okaaay...

Anyways, Tattoo Culture is only a couple blocks away from Saved, and I stumbled upon it when I started walking in the wrong direction by accident. It is so much more welcoming. The guys there were friendly and warm, the studio was impeccably clean and organized, they have multiple artists who take walk-ins (not just appointments months in advance), and they have rotating art on the walls. (As an aside, the current art exhibit is cool enough that people should stop by just to see it. It's photographs of regular people in their conservative work clothing, then photos of the same people in their punked out, personal clothes, with their tattoos all showing. Very clever.) And, most importantly, the tattoo artists there do really excellent work, especially Dave and Gene, the two resident artists.

Dave Wallin was awsome. This will be my first really "big" piece, so I'm kinda nervous. But Dave discussed every detail of the tattoo with me--feather style, shadows, exact placement, even the amount and angle of "light" hitting the birds--so I feel 100% confident about being in his hands.

When I go back to get it done Sunday, I'll get Dave's original sketch and will take photos of the stencil, linework, and finished product. He estimated about 4 hours of actual tattooing, so here's hoping I can handle the pain long enough to get it all done in one sitting.

looooove

2008-01-11T13:17:00.001-05:00

Found more illustrators whose work I adore, this time through the Vinyl Pulse site.

First up is Sarah Joncas, a Canadian artist whose ultra-feminine work has a decidedly Dali-esque feel to it. These are so pretty it kills me.

Then we have Camilla d'Errico, another Canadienne. Her adorable girls have incredibly expressive eyes, and the girls in helmets are especially quirky and cute. Check out her "Birds and the Bees" series in the Recent Work section for some incredibly sexy (and slightly demented) cuties. Meanwhile, here are two of my other favorites:

These two artists are in a joint show at Thinkspace in LA.

I wanna go! Vinyl Pulse only lists shows and stuff for California. What about us NY'ers??

...

2008-01-07T14:20:00.002-05:00

The Society of Illustrators is currently hosting an online exhibit of art that responds to the war in Iraq, by contemporary graphic artists and illustrators.

I rarely write about personal things in here, but this is one time when I really feel compelled to. I met a wonderful man through an online dating site last May. After messaging back and forth for a few weeks, we met for a date, and ended up really hitting it off. Long story short, Joe and I have been together for about seven and a half months now.

Now comes the unusual part. He's in the military. And I'm a staunch pacifist. He's still extremely liberal and atheist (as am I) and we share many of our world views. But in the past, I always maintained that I couldn't date someone in the military because I assumed the thought of (or knowledge of) him having killed someone would change the way I felt and/or treated the guy. Granted, Joe hasn't been sent abroad or seen combat yet, but there have been a few instances already in which he was slated to go to Afghanistan, but then the situation changed for him. Every time he gets a phone call or e-mail from the military, my heart skips a beat. What if things are changing again, and now he does have to go? Would our relationship survive him being gone for a year (or potentially more)? Would he even survive?

Honestly, it's something I don't even want to think about, but unfortunately I have to.

Since meeting Joe, my attitude toward the war, toward the U.S. government, toward soldiers in general, have all undergone a shift. I hate the reasons for going into Iraq, but recognize that at this point, the American military presence cannot just pick up and leave. I mean, with the way things have developed, Iraq is damned if we do and damned if we don't; but at least General Petraeus seems to be making some headway, and a new, hopefully more realistic and responsible, administration will be put in place in less than a year. As for the current administration, my opinion has done nothing but get worse and worse (not that it was even remotely positive to begin with...). Never in my life have I felt so distrustful and disgusted by the U.S. government. Even with elections looming, I still have very little faith in the government anymore. I've always known that politicians are inherently evil (such is the nature of the beast), but by now, I've pretty much lost all faith that these people are trying to help Americans. I'm even leary of Obama, who I support and fully intend to vote for in the primary. I just have a lot of doubt that his message of hope will follow through (though I have way more doubt among the other candidates, both Republican and Democrat).

As for my attitude shift toward soldiers... Well to be honest, I used to hold a lot of disdain for them. I know this was an unfair assessment; there are a lot of different reasons people choose to join the military, and as far as I can tell, blind support for the Iraq war is very rarely one of them. Wanting to kill people is never a reason (or if it is, then that person will in all likelihood get kicked out or not make it through training). After meeting Joe, though, after revisiting Suzanne Opton's photographs of soldiers at Fort Drum in light of the disappearance of some of them, after watching National Geographic's "Inside the Green Berets," after reading the cards sent into PostSecret each week from soldiers... now when I see soldiers in airports, recruiters on the street, etc, all I feel is sadness. Not because I pity them, but because I think I now share at least a little sense of empathy. The entire Iraq war has been such a huge, devastating mistake. Iraq's culture, cities, and civilians have been pillaged and destroyed. What started out as a "pre-emptive strike" has devolved into a mess of sectarian violence, civil war, and destruction. It's not fair that American lives are being sacrificed to this monster, much less the thousands of Iraqi lives.

It's all a big, irresponsible, disgusting mess.

So here is my presentation of the Society of Illustrators' "Artists against the War" exhibit. I'm posting the pieces that spoke to me the most, and my response to them in both artistic and personal parameters:

R.O. Blechman's "Support Our Troops"I love this drawing's simplicity. Its message is clear: blind patriotism is suffocating and prevents anything productive from getting done. I hate hate hate hate the blind patriotism that is foisted upon us by conservative media and the current administration. We're told that if we don't support the war, then we're not supporting the troops. This is completely bass-ackwards. I support removing our troops from harm's way; and I don't like being told that being anti-war makes me anti-soldier. Those fucking "Support our Troops" magnetic bumper stickers, which this piece is referencing, are straight-up stupid. How is forking over a dollar for a car decoration supporting anything? These people who wear their indignant patriotism on their sleeve are ridiculous. Are they sending encouraging letters to the troops, writing congress to demand that the troops receive adequate supplies, or doing anything even remotely constructive? No, they're buying magnets to stick on their gas-guzzling cars (which is part of the reason we're over there in the first place), and then maintaining a mindset that tells them they're part of the solution when in actuality they're doing nothing.

Serge Bloch's "Cannon Fodder" This one in particular is infinitely frustrating for me. How could politicians with no military experience (ahem Bush cough Rumsfeld) so carelessly ship sons and daughters, parents, husbands, wives, friends, companions... into such a quagmire? No plan, no exit strategy, barely any strategy at all for that matter, no real committment to catching Bin Laden, despite the fact that he was the one who masterminded the 9/11 attack, not Saddam Hussein. It's just so enraging! People are not cannon fodder, damnit! But they're certainly being treated as such.

Milton Glaser's "The Losses of War"
Honestly, I think this one just speaks for itself. Many of these pieces are deceptively simple, such as this. One little image evokes a deep gamut of painful facts and thoughts and emotions. This prosthetic arm stands for more than a soldier's lost hand. It stands for lost limbs; lost lives, families, homes; the forgotten minefields remaining in poor, war-ravaged countries; loss of innocence; loss of life; destruction of a culture, of history... of hope...

Gary Kelley's "Manifesto" This is probably my favorite. The figure looks so beaten. It could represent anyone involved in the war. The pacifists who are ignored or insulted, the Iraqis who are being invaded and killed from all sides, the soldiers forced to fight an unjust war... The darkness, simplicity, and skewed, half-fetal position of the figure are haunting. And the quote at the bottom is truly disturbing. It says "Naturally the common people don't want war... but it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along... all you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denouce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." Sound familiar? The man who said this was Hermann Goring, a leading nazi officer who ended up being tried and found guilty of war crimes. This is interchangeable with the rhetoric that was spouted to justify the war in the first place and is still being spouted desite the obviousness of what a mistake the war is. Eerie. Just... positively frightening.

Peter Kuper's "This is Not a Comic"
Of course I love this one--it references modern art! It also points out the contradictions at play not just in the Iraq war, but in issues we've faced throughout the Bush administration's tenure. Everything has been glossed over. Iraq was not an "invasion," it was a "pre-emptive strike;" destruction of animals' habitats and encouragement of pollution and consumption isn't "damaging" because there's no such thing as "global warming," and even if there were, it won't kill us in our lifetime; the removal of our "rights" is acceptable because we're "fighting terror;" ignoring the genocide in Darfur is acceptable because it doesn't suit American economic interests to intervene. There is so much going wrong in this country. And so many people are just complacent. I hope the new election brings out droves of voters, from both sides. It's time people start caring.

Koren Shadmi's "Tasting Victory"
I have mixed feelings about this one. Visually, it's very powerful. The red on the dress really stands out and is quite brutal, disturbing even. The painting is right to argue that this war is not comparable to those of the past. The "enemy" now is totally amorphous. There are no clear "good guys" and "bad guys," leaving out a sense of glory in fighting. On the other hand, this piece presents a very grim impression of soldiers in this war: faceless, violent, killing machines. I know there has been some very publicized horrible activity at the hands of American soldiers (torture at Abu Ghraib and that rape and murder of the 14-year old girl and her family, for example), but the vast, vast majority of soldiers are not attacking innocent people on purpose. I feel like this piece stands for the opposite of the blind patriotism I discussed above. Any extreme, obstinate frame of mind is going to be wrong. There is always more than one side to every issue. True, soldiers who have committed crimes must be punished for their deeds, but in general, in the case of Iraq, the blame needs to be spread among those responsible for starting and proliferating the war, not on those who are stuck carrying out irresponsible orders.

i'm in love...

2008-01-03T13:54:00.002-05:00

...with these drawings by French illustrator Annette Marnat.

Her drawings are so French. The sketchyness and loose lines, slight cartoony quality, and exaggerated shapes, wrapping up to create an overall quirky feel, are trademarks of French illustration (see Toulouse-Lautrec, these guys, and pretty much any Franco-Belgian comic) , as well as some of my favorite effects in illustration and animation overall. I love love love love love these. Thanks to my French skills, I was also able to glean the following from what little information about her exists on the interwebs:

Annette was born in 1982 near Roanne (central France, northeast of Lyon) and now lives in Lyon. She studied at the Émile Cohl School, also in Lyon. She's had her illustrations printed in various publications and now works as a children's book illustrator, including the "Pavillon Noir" ("Black Ship," approximately) adventure series, which, near as I can tell, is about kids who are pirates.

I wish I could find more about how she creates the work on her blog. Some look like they're pastel, but the backgrounds, lighting effects, and repeating patterns are clearly computer-generated, so I'm wondering if they're not entirely done on the computer, with different built-in effects and textures.

!!!

2008-01-03T00:42:00.001-05:00

This is FANTASTIC! (So fantastic that I'm using bold, italics, and caps lock. Wow!)

One
Two
Three

Read all three parts in order! It's short, I promise.

I love this! It reminds me of my grandmother because she tried to teach me how to draw a face in profile once when I was little, and it was just as ugly as this guy's face drawing (but I still loved it and definitely still have at least one notebook with my version of her faces). It also reminds me of the "How to Draw" books I used to covet as a little kid. I used to take them out of my elementary school library so often that the protective plastic covering actually got all ripped up on a few and my mom bought new plastic to re-cover them because she knew the school would never do it.

More illustration that I've fallen in love with.

2007-12-31T12:10:00.001-05:00

These are by Seiko Omori. The 3D girls look a little stoned, but they're so charming and sweet. And then the 2D ones are more like fashion illustration--so edgy and cool with their dash of anime style. I love that Omori utilizes two diametrically opposite styles, but they somehow still feel cohesive together. I think it's the rosy cheeks and faraway glances that do it.

(This is my favorite 2D one. I think I may have to print it onto transfer paper and make a purse or tee-shirt out of it.)

(Love those pouty lips!)

P.S. Sorry for so many image dumps lately! I just can't help but share it when I find illustrations I like (being a wannabe-illustrator myself and all). Plus, it helps me to remember them for my own projects and stuff :]

pretty pictures

2007-12-31T11:12:00.001-05:00

I have become completely addicted to the Drawn! blog. Yesterday they posted a link to illustrator Justin White's site, Jublin. He's had seven tee-shirt designs printed over at Threadless.com and has some deliciously demented illustrations on his site. The guy has a real talent for exaggerated facial expressions and melding the cute and grotesque. He's like an American, male version of Junko Mizuno (only my favorite illustrator EVER).

And here is my favorite of Jublin's work on his site:

It's so twisted!... And pink!

more stuff found on the Drawn! blog

2007-12-29T19:53:00.002-05:00

Los Campesinos music videos:

It sort of bothers me how the animation in the one above only seems to match the music during the chorus, but it's still cool nonetheless.

I like this one even MORE:

Disco war!

The colors are so bright and fun! And obviously I'm a fan of the anti-war sentiment, but I also just really like the animation. The illustration is childlike, but still moves so fluidly. Love it!

happy holidays, etc

2007-12-27T17:01:00.001-05:00

Found these on Drawn! The Illustration and Drawing Blog:

(M. Ward's Chinese Translation)

(My First Crush)

Awwww

!!!

2007-11-18T20:11:00.001-05:00

Oh my god tonight's Simpsons episode had Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman, and Dan Clowes! And they called themselves the "League of Extraordinary Freelancers"! Genius!

This may give the Homerpalooza one (featuring none other than the Smashing Pumpkins) a run for its money as the best Simpsons episode ever.

new article at zingmagazine.com

2007-11-15T14:23:00.001-05:00

http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/447 or you can read it below

Censorship Exhibit at the Brecht Forum
By Leah Hansen

Thursday, November 8 saw the opening of “Censorship: An Exhibition Benefiting Artists in Distress” at the Brecht Forum. The reception featured plenty of food and drinks, live performances, and a raucous crowd the filled every inch of the relatively small gallery space. The featured artists hail from countries around the world and utilize an array of mediums, including drawing, painting, photography, video, and performance. The only thing missing was context.

No artist’s statement or biography appeared; no overall explanation of the show’s goal was on view. The press release for the exhibition, which can be found at freedimensional.org, explains that a few of the artists have faced political repercussions as a result of their controversial work, but nowhere at the actual show can one read which artists were censored and which are simply responding to the idea of censorship.

This creates a modicum of confusion. Though quite striking, Melissa Murray’s “Bag,” a four-foot graphite drawing of a nude woman in profile, sitting on the ground wearing a plastic grocery bag like a hat, doesn’t necessarily address censorship. Yes, nudity is frequently under attack by censors, but in this case, the woman’s arms and legs obscure any “offensive” parts. Moving on, one arrives at Sarah Valeri’s stunning painting, “Bright”. The 30-inch canvas features a lithe, androgynous child curled in a fetal position on a swamp bank. In the foreground, a dog with a frog riding on its back swims by; lily pads float around them. The painting’s sea of blue, green, lavender, and cream swirl gently together, and, coupled with the child’s morose expression, evokes serenity and sadness. But, again, one wonders how it relates to the show’s theme.

The pieces with clear ties to censorship cover emotions ranging from rage to hope to humor. Particularly humorous are the pieces by photographer “BKLYN Paul,” who attended the opening naked. In “Spring Street,” the artist appears naked and smirking in front of graffiti-covered wall that creates a stark contrast to his unclothed body. On the left, an amateur photographer is caught snapping Paul’s photo with a little digital camera and a woman on the right turns toward us with a big grin. Paul’s “Subway Series” consists of three photos of a friend riding the subway naked. Only one other rider watches with a scowl, while everyone else is clearly laughing. The laughter captured in these photos emphasizes the ridiculousness of the attempts by the FCC and conservatives to fine and jail people for even accidental flashes nudity. Meanwhile, no one in these photos appears harmed or scarred by seeing a naked man on the streets of New York.

Collages by Issa Nyaphaga and Bara Diokhane evoke potent anger at the lack of artistic freedom in their homelands, Cameroon and Senegal. Mel Smothers’ two Mao portraits (of the Andy Warhol variety), painted over with ethereal birds in flight, impart a sense of hope for the future.

While the exhibition is successful as a showcase of eclectic art, it fails to maintain a cohesive message about censorship. Background information on the art and artists is especially important in this context, as artists face the FCC crackdown on “obscene” television and radio programming, and the current administration’s attempts to repeal basic rights in the name of “combating terrorism.” Without an explanation tying this work together, it’s just a mish-mash of art—impressive art, but a mish-mash nonetheless.

“Censorship: An Exhibition Benefiting Artists in Distress” will be on display at the Brecht Forum, located at 451 West Street between Bank and Bethune Streets, through December 6. There will also be a closing celebration held on Friday, November 30 from 7 to 10 p.m., featuring live music and dance. For more information, visit brechtforum.org or call 212-242-4201.

aww

2007-11-12T11:08:00.002-05:00

Cutest OverheardinNewYork post ever:

Girl: I'll have a dozen bagels.
Bagel guy: I can't pass up on this opportunity. I have to tell you that you're really cute.
Girl: [Blushes.]
Bagel guy: Do you know what the difference between cute and not cute is?
Girl: ... Nooo, what?
Bagel guy: Three bagels. [Hands girl 15 bagels.]

--Jumbo Bagels, 57th & 2nd

Bette Midler's Hulaween

2007-11-07T12:27:00.002-05:00

New article written by yours truly on the zingmagazine website:

http://www.zingmagazine.com/drupal/node/435

It's accompanied by photographs by the extremely talented (and my former room mate) Marta Fodor, more of whose work can be found at www.martafodor.com

She and I covered the "red carpet" at Hulaween, but there were only a couple of real celebrities who walked it. Seeing paparazzi up close was quite enlightening, though. The paps are CRAZY!! They were shoving each other out of the way and stealing other people's spots, and the guy next to us was saying all these nasty comments about the other photographers and even the people walking the red carpet. There's no need for that kind of behavior--it's not like this was the Oscars!

meh

2007-10-25T13:38:00.001-04:00

I saw a homeless guy fall onto the train tracks this morning. Two guys immediately pulled him out, and there wasn't a train coming, luckily. The man was obviously mentally handicapped and seemed really out of it. He was yelling gibberish and lying there sort of slowly wiggling his arms and legs once the two guys pulled him back onto the platform. It was kind of a scary thing to see. You have to wonder what would have happened to the guy had he fallen in when it wasn't rush hour and full of people. I know people like to say that some homeless are that way by choice, or are just addicted to drugs (so it's their own fault [?]), but what about people like this one? He probably has no family or anyone to take care of him. And yes, there are services out there to help the homeless, but how is someone like this supposed to take advantage of them, much less even take the initiative to seek them out?

It's just really sad to see. I mean, what can you do for someone like that? Throwing change at him won't exactly help anything, even if your heart IS in the right place for doing so. I hope the police or paramedics or whoever that got there after I was gone got the guy to a shelter or something.

!

2007-10-23T12:26:00.001-04:00

Stephen Colbert is speaking at Barnes & Noble Union Square tomorrow FOR FREE!!! Who's going?? Leah's going!!

SO EXCITED!!!

The Stephen T. Colbert Award for the Literary Excellence

2007-10-17T13:52:00.001-04:00

Stephen Colbert's new book, "I am America (And So Can You)" is HILARIOUS. I'm only about a third of the way through it so far, but it's been making me laugh out loud (literally--I'm not being hyperbolic [is that a word?]). I've been chuckling on every subway ride I've taken for the past few days. The whole thing is written in the same style as the way he talks on The Colbert Report. He seems serious, but you know it's a joke because the things he says (writes? dictates?) are just so abdurd. The book really is the television show in bound form. There are even little snarky notes written in the margins, which is reminiscent of his "The Word" segment from the show. The entire thing is split into chapters on issues that affect America today ("family, "old people" [hee-hee], "religion," etc.), and consists of Steve giving his opinion (which we're ordered to all follow) on each of the topics. I'm currently in the religion chapter, and just HAD to post this one line from his section on Shinto:

"...a whole bunch of magical beings based in different parts of nature? That's not a religion, that's Pokemon."

HA!!

Oh Stephen Colbert, you are just too much...

He's doing a talk and signing books next Tuesday (Oct. 23) at the 92nd Street Y. I thought t was free, but I just looked it up, and it actually costs $35 and is SOLD OUT!!! The L Magazine did not say it cost anything OR that you had to reserve tickets in its listing! LAME!!! Though a "limited number of tickets may be available an hour before curtain," so I think I'm gonna try to get in anyways.

mini review

2007-10-15T16:36:00.001-04:00

One of the people I met at the Haystack Arts Camp alerted me to an exhibit currently displayed at SUNY Stonybrook called “No se sabe más: No more is know: Anonymity and the murders of women in Ciudad Juárez.” The show features work influenced by and in reaction to the hundreds of serial mutilations, murders, and disappearances of women and girls that have been going on for the last 15 years in Cuidad Juarez, a Mexican city near El Paso, Texas. I stumble upon an article about these murders once every couple years or so, and it just keeps getting worse. The Mexican government does almost nothing to solve or prevent these crimes, and the few suspects they do catch are tortured until they confess (or die), leaving serious doubt as to whether they’re actually guilty. (Confessions given under torture are almost always false, since the person being tortured will usually do anything to make it stop.) I won’t be able to get over to Stonybrook in person, but the exhibit’s website has a photograph of each piece in it, as well as a deeper explanation of this situation, so here’s a little mini-review. I hope this exhibit will teach some new people about this horrible phenomenon. The longer it goes ignored, the longer it’s going to go on.

The 13 female artists of this show each have one piece pictured on the website. Some are also accompanied by an artist’s statement or explanation of the item. Unfortunately, some have neither, and some have a more general artist’s statement, rather than an explanation of how the piece ties into the theme. The general statements almost take away from the idea behind the exhibition, as they seem self-indulgent in comparison to the heartfelt words written on the murderous situation in Mexico.

There’s also quite a wide variation in skill level. Some of the art just looks amateurish compared to the better pieces. Marisa Cornejo Kasterine’s watercolor drawing features a roughly hewn girl diving head first out the backseat door of a moving van, with five male figures seated inside the vehicle. The background consists of brown and yellow scribbles for the road, and flat red with a layer of yellow forked trees for the space behind the van. The artist’s explanation is a short treatise on the artist’s nightly dreams, which this piece is presumably based on, though it doesn’t outright say so. How, then, does this fit in with the theme? A personal statement unrelated to the exhibition’s inspiration just seems out of place. In addition, the drawing itself is unimpressive in its child-like quality. It’s a purely two dimensional drawing: no depth, no shadow, and simple line rendering of the figures and vehicle, right down to the horizontal lines trailing the van to indicate motion.

Kasterine’s drawing fits in neither with the exhibit’s theme, nor with the skill level in the more accomplished pieces, such as Jain Hutzell’s sinewy carved wooden sculpture. Her upright log has subtle flows that vaguely resemble a human body and a stretching hand near its top, as if it’s reaching out for help.

Erica Arce’s ceramic sculpture, however, is by far the standout piece of the show. It’s a ceramic, mutant human torso painted cream with dusty gray in the corners and cracks. The gray corners and allover scratchy texture make it look dirty and beat-up. The figure’s head, back of the neck, and back of the shoulders are jaggedly broken off, and its arms clutch its belly at the base of the elongated torso. A split down the figure’s center, and a bloody red stain at the broken edge of the shoulders, make it all the more disturbing. I only wish the online photo were bigger, so I could get a better look at the details and the shreds of clay scattered at its base (I can’t tell what they are from the photo). Overall, the figure evokes pain, sadness, and serious abuse. It sympathizes with the mutilated and murdered women of Cuidad Juarez. Taken in a broader context, the figure can be seen as representing the women across the globe who are maltreated and killed every day while their government and society do nothing to stop it and the rest of the world remains ignorant or apathetic.

I wish the website included bigger and more photos, and it’d be nice if media were listed with each piece. At the very least, they ought to list the titles of the pieces pictured online. But I guess the website really isn’t the focus; the idea is to GO to the show.

For those who ARE able to go to Stonybrook, the exhibit is located in the Student Acitivity Center Gallery, which is open Tuesday through Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and will be on display through November 2. Website is http://studentaffairs.stonybrook.edu/sacgallery.

gross

2007-10-12T16:06:00.001-04:00

So I know this is totally old, but it's so messed up that I had to post about it. I was surfing around dlisted.com and found a post from this past February about a London restaurant, Bumpkin, which was offering free meals to size zero models with a BMI under 18 if they presented their model card. Bumpkin only gave free food to size zero models--no size one fatties allowed!

Are you KIDDING ME??? These are women who choose not to eat! Even though I doubt any models who are that skinny would even take advantage of the offer, it's still ridiculous. Why are models being rewarded for being morbidly thin?? I've also (sadly) been watching the new season of America's Next Top Model, and the judges called the one girl who's not skin and bones (she's maybe a size 7/8) "almost plus size." WHAT??? I used to really like high fashion (not that I can afford it, but it's still fun to follow it), but it's gotten to the point where I just can't stand anything remotely related to the world of high fashion anymore. The New York Times Style Magazine, which has become my main source of fashion reading, drives me insane--every article is written in this pompous, pretentious tone of voice, as if owning ridiculously overpriced clothes is the true mark of success in life. Most women's magazines do the same thing, as well as presenting a new "must-have" list every few months. And god forbid that a "fashionista" wear something from (gasp!) last season. How important can any of these clothes be if no one wants to wear them again three months down the road??

And this obsession with thinness is completely out of control. While walking down the street with a male friend recently, we passed a really tall, ridiculously skinny blonde girl wearing a short black dress, and my friend made some comment about how hot she was. I said, "Are you kidding
me?! She has no boobs or butt!" and he responded by saying that she looks good that way because she's so tall or something. Then some random guy behind us was like, "Yeah, man!" and the two of them laughed it up about their shared observation. I don't understand how a woman in her 20s having the body of a twelve year old boy is attractive or, more importantly, healthy. And these designers who claim that clothes "just look better" on thin women are ridiculous. How many designers are that thin? Where do they buy their clothes? (P.S. If you make clothes to fit someone that thin, then, yes, it is going to look better on a skinny-minny. It's no different than plus-size clothes looking better on plus-size women. It's not that clothes in general look better on super-skinny women, it's that everyone looks better in clothes that are designed for their specific body type! Sheesh!)

And this restaurant thing--why don't they give free food to people who don't eat because they legitimately can't? There is rampant starvation around the world and they're donating food to people who choose not to eat, to the point that some of them are actually dying. Disgusting. It's gotten to the point that I just don't understand how anyone can embrace or enjoy high fashion anymore. Designers suing cheap chain retailers for copying their admittedly unoriginal designs (http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0739,yaeger,77905,15.html), aestheticizing morbid thinness, and the exclusivity and whole annoying aura of self-importance in the fashion industry... it just disgusts me. I can't even enjoy Betsy Johnson and Vivienne Westwood anymore, and I've loved their clothes since forever.

On a more positive note, here's today's moment of surreality: Last night, I walked through Abingdon Square Park on my way to The Spotted Pig, and there were three clusters of three massive gourds (maybe 16 inches long and 9 inch diameter at the widest part) in the bushes in the center of the square. It was dark and I didn't get that good of a look, so I don't know if they were real or not, but it was still pretty random. And if they were real, then that is some serious genetic modification going on.

the end of (another) hiatus

2007-10-05T11:25:00.001-04:00

So it's been another crazy ridiculous couple of months, and blogging has ONCE AGAIN taken a back seat to the rest of life. I have been simultaneously searching for a job and a new apartment.

After sending out about 30 resumes with no response whatsoever, I got an interview and was hired about a month ago as a proofreader for a real estate marketing company. They don't really do marketing in the traditional sense here. When a building or piece of property goes up for sale, the seller hires a brokerage company, and the broker hires us to create an "offering memorandum," which is a book with anywhere from 30 to 150 pages full of information on the property, and is intended to convince potential buyers to purchase it. So, really, I would say this is more of a graphic design firm, it's just that they only design one thing.

Then I spent about a month trying to find an apartment. October 1st is probably the worst possible move-in date. Returning college students snatch up everything good in September, and then no one's moving out in October, so there's very little to choose from, especially if you have a low budget. But I did manage to find a nice place right in Williamsburg (only a block from the Lorimer L stop!) a week before the lease ended in my old place. It's a really cute, fairly big place in a fun neighborhood. It's around the corner from the Alligator Lounge, only one of the best bars ever, so designated because you get a free pizza with every beer you buy--and it's a good-sized pizza too, none of this "personal pan" nonsense.

However, even though I'm pretty much settled into both my job and new apartment, I still won't be updating this regularly for a bit longer, as internet is not yet installed at home. I am going to try to start a new, short feature that I can update here while I wait for internet at home, though.

So here's the plan: Every day, I see something surreal or funny or just smile-inducing (most often on the subway), so I'm going to start writing down all these little moments here for all to enjoy.

Moment numero uno:

9:15 a.m., L train: A young (maybe 21-22?) guy gets on the train wearing a too-small tuxedo with a bubblegum pink bowtie. (Who wears a tuxedo at 9:15 in the morning?? And with a bowtie--a pink bowtie--no less? Fantastic.)

Moments later, same train: I spotted a billboard for a palm computer, upon which someone had scribbled "GO HOME, GET A LIFE, AND STOP CHECKING YOUR EMAIL!" I could be really pretentious here, and claim it as a cry against our constant need to be plugged in at all times, but I'm more reminded of a postcard in the first "Post Secret" (postsecret.blogspot.com) book that says, "I hate billboards so much that I have started to vandalize them." Made me smile, in any case. Sometimes I really wish I had a camera in my cell phone so I could document these things visually. Pulling out my big, wonky digital camera is too conspicuous.

back in business

2007-07-29T19:17:00.003-04:00

I have been a very, very bad little blogger lately. Actually, I've been an absent blogger, really. Working on the thesis and being out of town took serious priority. But grad school is officially over, I'm back in NYC, and it's time to return to this poor, neglected blog.

First, a short recap of my time spent at the Haystack Arts Camp in Deer Isle, ME. I was there for two weeks, met some really nice people, and got to do lots of art. Also, the food was shockingly good. I expected it to be gross vegan tofu nonsense every day, but there was a huge variety, and LOTS of yummy baked goods for dessert at lunch and dinner. I learned lithography, and made three sets of prints during the first week. I pretty much just took it easy and hung out during the second week, instead of doing more lithos. I needed a vacation. Plus there was only one printing press and eight students, and everybody snatched up the time slots before I could sign up for any, unless I wanted to do it at 3 in the morning (no thanks).

Lithography, by the way, is done by taking a flat limestone, and drawing on it with grease-based pencils or ink. Then you coat the whole thing in gum arabic and do some stuff with caustic chemicals (like lithotine, acetone, and my personal favorite, nitric acid!). You eventually roll grease-based ink onto the stone. The places you drew absorb the ink, and the rest of it absorbs water. So you coat the stone with a thin film of water when you're ready to print, and roll grease-based ink over the entire stone's surface. The drawing absorbs the ink, and the naked parts repel the ink ('cuz it's oil and water--get it?), then you run it through the press and the image goes onto a piece of paper. FUN!!

Here are the three lithos I made and the photos they're based on:

This photo was taken in the print studio at Haystack,
using my Mac's built-in camera set to "comic book effect."

Here is the actual print. I painted the eyes blue
with watercolor and acrylic paint.

This one was printed on this sheer cream paper called
chin colle, which is then affixed to the white paper.

This is Joe's cat, Clark. The photo was taken by a friend of his
who I do not know, but is a super talented photographer.

This paper is dark tan in real life, but my scanner didn't really do it justice.

This is a photo of Joe from a year ago, of which I fiddled with the contrast.

This one was printed on really lovely light blue paper, but again, the scanner didn't pick it up so well. Also, the margins are way bigger in real life, but my scanner can only do eight and a half by 11 inch-size paper.

Since getting back, I've been attending my usual galleries and art activities. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which was surprisingly good. It got pretty bad reviews as I recall, but I thought it was way better than number two. It was a bit confusing, what with all the new characters who were only in it for a few minutes, and three hours was too long, but in general it was still really enjoyable. Johnny Depp was as fantastic as always, and Keith Richards was a nice addition.

I saw the Simpsons movie on its opening night as well, which was awsome. Honestly, I was really expecting it to be lame. The show itself is nowhere near as good as it was a decade ago. A couple peple I know complained that it was just an hour and a half long episode, but to that I say, then it's the best episode they've made in years. Seriously. The whole theatre was laughing out loud through the whole thing. It had just the right amount of classic Simpsons silliness and jabs at pop culture and politics.

I also went to the Rubin Museum Friday night, which I'd never even heard of before Joe pointed it out to me. It focuses on Himalayan art. It's got six floors of art and a swanky bar on the first floor. On Fridays it's free after 7 p.m. and open until 10. And if you buy a drink (of any price), you can see their Friday night movie for free. It currently houses three exhibits: "What is it?" on the second floor (through Oct. 28), "Wutaishan: Pilgrimage to Five Peak Mountain" on the third (through Oct. 16), and "The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama" on the fourth and fifth (through Sept. 3).

"What is it?" was separated into four sections covering "Where is it made?", "Why is it made?", "How is it made?", and "What is going on?". The art on display was all kinds of stuff--sculpture, paintings, embroidery--that mostly consisted of large scenes and/or minute detail. Then all the pieces had long explanations that answered the question of whichever section it was in. I got kind of tired of reading so much text after a while because it was making me pay less attention to the art itself. So I eventually just stopped reading and spent my time staring up close at each piece. Everything was stunningly beautiful. The colors in the paintings on fabric were shockingly bright and the statues and sculptures had some of the most impressively minute detail I've ever seen. And of the text that I did read (which was a lot), it was really fascinating. It explained the roles of the deities pictured, and the symbolism of repeated imagery, and the process that goes into some of the common mediums and processes.

"Wutaishan: Pilgrimage to Five Peak Mountain" wasn't nearly as interesting. It focused on Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom, who lives on Mount Wutaishan. Joe and I kind of breezed through this part to get to "The Missing Peace," which was fantastic! It consisted of art inspired by or featuring the Dalai Lama, created by people all over the world. It covered pretty much every genre of art: photography, painting, video, installation, ceramics, sculpture... And there was a really wide variation in genders and nationalities among the artists, which is unusual (but much-welcomed) for contemporary art in a museum setting. One of my favorite pieces was this small participatory installation of a shelf holding a number of spools of golden thread. Museum-goers are instructed to stand in front of the shelf and pull the thread out to arm's length, then let it drop to the floor. One and a half spools were empty and there was a big pile of the thread clustered in one spot. I wish I'd written down the piece's explanation (and its title and author for that matter) because I'm gong to bastardize it really horribly here, but the idea is that the many arms' lengths of thread represent, like, joining hands all across the world. I think I'm inadvertently trivializing it with my crummy explanation, but I assure you, it was moving.

As for the overall feel, The Rubin is one of the best organized museums I've ever been to. The pieces on the walls are sufficiently spread out that you never feel overwhelmed, but close enough that the place hardly feels empty. Floating columns and display cases are placed so that they don't obstruct your walking path. The whole place was really clean and displays looked consistent throughout. The lighting was perfect, the air-conditioning was comfortable, the crowds were minimal (it is in a pretty off-the-beaten-path location), I could go on for a while here. Plus--hello!--open till 10 on Fridays with free admission and a free movie? I will definitely be going back in the near future.

new computer!

2007-04-29T23:35:00.001-04:00

So my computer decided to completely die on me a few days ago. In hysterics, I called my parents and my mother suggested that I come home and use our computer here, and we would either take mine to get fixed or get a new one. Considering that my computer was five years old, it was pointless to pump more money into getting it fixed (remember the internet connection [or should I say lack thereof] fiasco that cost me $250?). So today we traipsed on over to the Apple store and they bought me my graduation present early. I am now the proud owner of a Macbook Pro! Hooray! I am a Mac virgin no longer. It's so lovely and functional. So I took a bunch of creeeeepy photos of myself in the lovely glaring glow of the screen with its built-in camera. Enjoy the slide show!

sucks

2007-04-12T15:25:00.001-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut died.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

I am more upset by this than I would have expected.

Why is it so upsetting when someone you admire dies, even when you're completely removed from his realm of existence? I don't know. I need to go to the library right now and read some more of his books.

P.S. http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=973 (People familiar with either his work or the NYT article will get it.)

Ireland in photos

2007-03-25T21:55:00.001-04:00

The tattoo! I love it I love it I love it!

So lush! This is in Konnemara.

A cemetary on Inis More.

The (sort of) mystery fortress on Inis More (note the beautiful weather).

Me standing atop the 300 foot cliff at the fortress.

The pathway of the solitary hike I took at Coole Lake (so beautiful).

Cool chandelier in Dublin Castle.

Cool floor in Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

My first Guinness (but not my last!).

The pre-St. Paddy's Day percussion band.

here comes a long one!

2007-03-25T20:50:00.001-04:00

Ireland Spring Break part deux:

So "Julius Caesar" was okay. The acting left a little to be desired, but not because it was "bad," it just didn't fit the characters quite right. Brutus, for example, seemed too defeatist. It was like "You want me to kill Caesar, Cassius? You mean my best friend in the world, that Caesar? Oh, um... okay. Why not?" Blah. The costumes and sets were mesmerizing, though. The costumes culled from all different eras, which I read as representing a number of different war eras. WWI helmets, Greco-Roman armor, samurai armor, etc. And somehow it all mixed together cohesively.

Wednesday we went to Trinity College, where we saw the Book of Kells. I didn't find it terribly fascinating, actually. The campus was lovely, though. We also went to Dublin Castle, which was interesting because it's still used for meetings and dinners with politicians now. I took a short look in the Chester Beatty Library, which had Catholic, Islamic, and Hindu and Buddhist art on display. I only had time to see a little of it, though, as we had to move on to Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The cathedral's stained glass windows were less than impressive, but it had some really lovely patterns on the floor tiles to make up for that.

Thursday was the Dublin Writers' Museum, which was a snorefest unless you're really into your Irish literature, which I confess I've read very little of. In the afternoon we went to Kilmainham Jail, which I found absolutely fascinating. For one thing, I instantly recognized the big hall from pictures in books on Foucault, who I love. It was a panopticon, which is when the guards can see all the prisoners at all times, but the prisoners can't see them, so they never know if they're being watched or not. The jail was also fascinating because that's where the course of Irish history completely changed. They executed the leaders of the 1916 rebellion (against the British), which rallied the rest of Ireland to the rebellion's cause. Nearby the jail was the Irish Museum of Modern Art, which was kind of disappointing. It was a really dinky collection.

Friday had a lecture with a Californian woman, Karen Fricker, who moved to Ireland to write about theatre. I'm so jealous of her bravery. I love traveling, and would never turn down an oppurtunity to go abroad for a month (or two or three...), but I don't think I could just pick up and move permanently. Later I took a meandering walk around by myself, and checked out the George's Street Arcade and whatever other quirky shops I chanced upon. I found a percussion band made up of handicapped people, which I really enjoyed. Then that afternoon, I got my tattoo! It is beautiful. It came out perfect. I really couldn't be happier with it. See the next entry for photos. I just love it! The travel tattoos are officially underway. And I'll be in France in July for my cousin's wedding, so I'll finally be able to get the swirly fleur de lis that I've wanted for a while now.

Saturday was probably the most fun-filled day of the trip, as it was Saint Patrick's Day! A bunch of us watched the parade in the morning. It was weird. It was more like a Mardi Gras parade, with dragons and animals and other non-Irish-themed floats. In the afternoon, some of us went to a pub to watch the Six Nations rugby tournament, which was fantastic! Picture this: drinking Guinness in a pub in Ireland, while watching rugby, surrounded by tipsy, boisterous (oftentimes singing) natives, on St. Patrick's Day. So much fun!

Hooray Ireland!

Change of subject: Today in NYC was ansolutely gorgeous. Rachel, Marta, and I went to "Indwelling," the women-centric photography show Marta was part of. The theme of the exhibit was women's bodies, and how they see themselves. Some of the stuff was a tad amateurish (a photo of a chubby girl's back with sharpie writing on it saying stuff like "love handles"), but most of it was gorgeous and extremely professional. Marta's photo was actually probably my favorite. It was a sepia-toned 24x20 Polaroid of a naked girl sitting in profile with her knees up to her chest, with lilies sitting on her lap and lilies and almonds placed at her feet. It was really delicate and beautiful-looking.

After the show, the three of us went to "Fabulous Fannie's," a vintage eyeglass frame shop. They had TONS of frames to choose from, but I still couldn't quite find what I wanted. I want a big old black plastic really nerdy-looking pair. But my head is tiny, so it's a struggle to find ones that actually look right.

It was such a nice day that I decided to walk nearly all the way home. I went from the East Village, to the Williamsburg Bridge, then crossed the bridge and walked about half of the rest of the way back to my place, then hopped on the subway once I got to the stop I wanted. It was probably about four miles in all. And I took lots of pictures of quirky stuff on the way. God, I love weekends in the city.

spring break!

2007-03-13T14:47:00.001-04:00

So I'm in Dublin, in an internet cafe. We arrived in Galway Saturday, 8 a.m. Irish time. I spent the day wandering around town seeing what was what. At night we saw the play, ''Leaves.'' I thought it was okay, but everyone else seemed to think it was great. It was about a family whose daughter tried to commit suicide. She was sent to a hospital of sorts, and the play focuses on her return home, and the effects on the rest of the family. I thought the end wrapped up too neatly. The mother and suicidal daughter had a breakthrough one night, and in the next scene it's a few months later, the daughter is leaving for college, and everyone is happy and back to normal. Sure.

On Sunday we took a bus tour of what I presume was the ''countryside'' on a windy, rainy day. The weather was totally tolerable, though, as the scenery was beautiful. We had dinner in a quasi-French restaurant, the highlight of which was the raspberry tart I had for dessert. Yum.

Yesterday (Monday) was incredible. We went to the Aran Islands, and took a ferry to Inis More, the biggest island. Though I thought I was going to die of seasickness on the boat ride over, it was well worth it. The weather was impeccably gorgeous, and the island was absolutely stunning. We hiked up to this fort that overlooked a 300-foot cliff. What a view. The water was bright green and the cliffs on either side of us were sheer drops. Some of us braved the height and lay down right at the edge to peer over, myself included. And, again, I can't even begin to describe how impeccable the weather was. Blue sky, sun, and zero clouds for the majority of the day. We were so lucky. I also bought a really cute hand-made knit hat. At night some of us went to a pub-ish restaurant, then followed that up with an hour or so of traditional Irish folk music in another pub. What a great end to a superb day.

Today we drove to Dublin, stopping on the way at Coole Park, where I took a solitary hike through the woods. This was definitely the most gorgeous forest I've ever seen. There were old stone walls all over the place. Trees were covered in ivy, and everything was covered in bright green moss. It was serene.

Tonight we're going to see Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' at the Abbey Theatre. It should be good. We have to review it, though, so that means I can't go out tonight. Damn. I'm really looking forward to some serious nightlife now that my jet lag is finally all worn off.

Oh yeah, last thing: I set up an appointment today to get another tattoo! My quest to get tattooed in every foreign country I visit (not counting Canada) is on its way! So exciting!

wha-huh?

2007-03-06T21:25:00.001-05:00

I just saw a commercial for a new show on Court TV called "Till Death Do Us Part." It's about marriages that end badly, like with one spouse murdering the other. And it's hosted by John Waters.

wtf?! Who comes up with this stuff?

Anyhoo, I saw The Thermals at Studio B in Brooklyn last night. I was introduced to them about a week ago, so I'd only listened to three or four songs before the show. They're pretty much your standard indie-punk, but are really catchy and fun. Plus they were so good live. People in the crowd were really into it, with singing along and stage diving even though it was a small indoor place and the audience was really only thick enough for diving in a radius of ten feet from the stage. The band was all smiles; they seemed really happy to be there, which makes concerts so much more enjoyable. Also the bassist was totally darling. She was wearing a white eyelet babydoll dress and her curly hair was all flopping in her eyes. So cute.

Here are their websites:
http://myspace.com/thethermals
http://www.subpop.com/artists/the_thermals

it's about damn time

2007-03-03T21:49:00.001-05:00

Readers may have noticed an usually large gap in time between the last entry and this one. It's not because I'm not going to lots of galleries and events (au contraire! I've done more in two months of NYC life than I did all last semester in The 'Cuse.), it's not because I'm too busy, it's not even because I'm too lazy... It's because my wireless internet simply refused to work in my apartment (though my room mates have no trouble connecting and I have no trouble connecting everywhere else other than my own home). So I've gone without a regular internet diet for nearly two months now. Marta (the Hungarian room mate) allows me the use of her computer anytime I want, but I try not to take advantage of her kindness, so all computer activity has been reduced to the bare minimum. Today it occured to me that the semester is nearly half over and I'm nowhere near halfway done with the research and work required of the numerous papers that must be finished within mere months. So I sucked it up and called 1-800-geek-squad. It took five hours to figure out the problem and fix it. And that's at a rate of $98 an hour. So let me say this:

I highly, highly recommend 1-800-geek-squad. The guy was very professional, really nice, and extremely polite (he asked permission to use the bathroom like three times). I didn't feel at all skeeved out by letting this stranger into my home. He explained what he was doing periodically, so I know he wasn't just fooling around to charge me more. And then he only charged me for two and a half hours' worth of work. I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown, because I was thinking I would have to pay $500 just to get my internet working. That amount of money could pay for half a new computer! But no, I only had to pay $250. Plus he fixed my spyware detector and ended up cleaning up the whole computer, so now it runs faster too. $250 is a whole lotta money for me, but compared to the potential $500, I feel like it was totally worth it. I feel so much less stressed out now that I have internet. I can finally really get serious with my schoolwork. There's also a 100% guarantee, so if the internet somehow craps out again, Geek Squad will come right back and re-do it for free.

On to the art! I've been attending so much stuff lately that I don't even remember it all. But here are some highlights:

Kai Kuhne show during fashion week. Hugely fat fur mini-dresses, a knit one-piece bodysuit with jodhpurs, and a fat feathered mini-dress that made the model look like a slutty Big Bird. Scary.

Many, many art galleries in SoHo and Chelsea, including free brunch at Max Protetch last weekend. I was actually less than impressed by the gallery space itself (or even the current artwork), but far be it for me to complain about free food and art. I also followed it up with a trip to the Chelsea Art Museum, whose "The Food Show: The Hungry Eye" and "Dangerous Beauty" were deliciously clever (a floor made of scales in front of a CGI video of a scary-skinny runway model strutting her stuff, par example; or the bulimic family of dollhouse toys all vomiting into little toilets with the baby barfing into a training potty). P.S. They carried zingmagazine in their gift shop!

The Fountain Art Fair. A two dollar donation got you free drinks, a decent DJ, and a one-inch button featuring an illustration of-what else?-Duchamp's groundbreaking piece, "The Fountain." I fell in love with these pictures that were harsh black outlines of a mushroom cloud over top of a delicate pencil drawing of a big old rose. The flowers were so subtle that you didn't even notice it's a rose until you took a really good look. But they were so skillfully drawn that at first I thought it was a very light black and white photo. And the nuclear bomb over a rose? I know it's a bit of a cliche, but the mushroom cloud was very graphic and cool looking and that image is totally appropriate for the current political climate.

The zingmagazine release party! So much fun! To read about all the specific preparations I took part in, you'll have to mosy on over to the anonymous intern blog, but the party itself was fantastic. Trendy people + musical chairs + pinatas filled with condoms featuring photos of art on their wrappers + more pinatas filled with artist-related candy (paintbrushes, crayons, and cigarettes-so cute, no?) = a rolicking good time. Hopefully photos of the event will be up on the website soon. I can't wait for the new issue to finally get to the U.S. (it's being printed in Singapore currently). I love my internship.

Assuming my computer feels like behaving itself from now on, many more entries are on their way!

P.S. Ireland in a week!!

it's been a while

2007-02-04T18:49:00.002-05:00

So many changes in the past few weeks!

I moved into my new apartment in Queens. It is awsome. The rooms are big and airy and my two room mates are extremely nice. I started my internship with zingmagazine as well, which I'm loving. I'm mostly doing secretarial things, like googling phone numbers, but I also get to do some fun stuff, such as play with Photoshop and InDesign all day. I've spent a lot of time finding articles online about zing, which I then lay out in InDesign all pretty-like. They keep copies of all the articles they find to show to potential advertisers and stuff, to demonstrate that they have a lot of circulation, I guess.

We're also getting ready for the release party that's happening February 25, as the next issue comes out in March, so I've been helping with some of the preparations. There's going to be a pinata filled with condoms at the party (along with a bunch of other silly stuff--I can't wait!), and we're going to put pictures of some artists and/or their art on the wrappers. So I spent the better part of one day googling the artists and making little pictures in Photoshop to put on the wrappers. That was really fun. I'm so glad I took magazine editing last semester, 'cuz I've been using my newfound Photoshop and InDesign skills left and right (and apparently I'm the only intern who knows how to use them--go me!).

This past Friday, Anna (the very sweet and totally adorable managing editor) and I took off early to go gallery-hopping in Chelsea. We saw some fantastic photography in one gallery (that I of course failed to write down the name of, I have got to work on that). There were a whole bunch of bright, colorful portraits (about 10 by 10 inches) of children, but none of the kids were looking directly at the camera, and most weren't centered either. I thought the off-centeredness made the pictures look more natural and spontaneous. I also have a thing for off-kilter stuff in pretty much any visual art (drawings, paintings, prints, what have you). Also in the same gallery were some larger photos (like three by five feet?) of messy tables after people had finished eating. Each photo centered on a section of a table, most covered in a white or cream tablecloth, upon which might be a dessert plate with remnants of cake, or a couple pieces of silverware, some crumbs spread around or a round wine stain, etc. They were sort of voyeuristic, but lovely in their simplicity, and somehow comforting and cozy (particularly one that featured a saucer with what looked like a half-eaten slice of wedding cake left on it... so sweet).

Check out zingmagazine.blogspot.com for the anonymous intern blog.

Also! My Monday class was cancelled for the semester, so now I'm taking an art history independent study focusing on censorship in art. So now I only have to be in class in Syracuse on Wednesdays and sometimes have meetings on Tuesdays. So now I get to stay in NYC five or six days a week, instead of only four. It's wonderful. I love this city so much. I think my favorite part of the day is the subway ride into Soho from Queens, and back again. I get to watch all the neighborhoods and graffiti go by since the train is above ground. And crossing the Williamsburg Bridge feels like going home no matter which direction I'm going, whether toward the city or toward my apartment.

I feel like I'm finally doing something with my life.

immersion trip photos

2007-01-21T21:29:00.001-05:00

A poster in the little museum in the Performing Arts Library. This picture's a bit small to really see it, but it's absolutely beautiful and kind of goth looking.

Another theatre poster. It's so pretty... God, I love art nouveau.

Some random graffiti in Chelsea that I liked. It looks like the skeleton guy is trying to escape from the wall. Cute!

This is a painting by Cecily Kahn (from the day spent gallery hopping in Chelsea) that I really loved. I think the white splatter looks like a person falling head first. But the pastel colors in the background are serene, giving the sense that the "person" is floating, not falling. Yet the black splatter is violent and forceful. So I think the "person" is dead. The whole thing feels conflicted: is it peaceful or disturbing? I'm leaning toward both. Death is a sad thing to have to deal with and accept, but it's still a natural part of life.

This is the hallway leading to the bathrooms in the Studio Museum in Harlem. How unusual. I've always loved bright red walls for some reason.

A car in desperate need of a good washing in a parking garage in Harlem. I adjusted it for the new year.

And last, but most certainly not least, me at The Daily Show!

JOY!

2007-01-21T21:26:00.001-05:00

I got an apartment in Brooklyn! And it's beautiful! I move in Wednesday night! I still have class in Syracuse on Wednesdays, so I'll be commuting back and forth, but it's totally worth it.

I love New York City so much! I can't believe I'm finally going to be living there!

Pictures will come once I'm settled and it's decorated, etc.

still NY

2007-01-14T14:38:00.001-05:00

I actually returned from NYC a few days ago, but here is the wrap-up anyways:

Tuesday we spent the morning workshopping, and had lunch at the Algonquin again. We didn't have anything in the afternoon, so Erica and I did some window shopping on the upper west side. I found a pair of pointy-toed flats in bright yellow for only $20, but they only came in size seven. Sad.

In the evening we went to "The Daily Show"! Jon Stewart is a tiny, tiny man. But still awsome. I was surprised that every segment was done in only one take. I figured they would stop and do stuff over if someone stumbled over their words or anything. Also, they read from a teleprompter, which I was also surprised by, since Jon Stewart seems so natural when you watch it on TV, like he's just talking straight from his head. After the show, us SU'ers were herded into a separate room to wait for Steve Bodow, the head writer we were to have dinner with. And when Steve came down to meet us, he brought Jon Stewart with him! So we got to meet him en masse. We couldn't take any pictures or get autographs or anything, which was really disappointing, but I still got be in the same room as him, so hooray! nonetheless.

Wednesday was our last day. I walked to The Strand, where I picked up a copy of the complete "Little Nemo" comics. I also stumbled upon an organic farmer's market in Union Square, and got some hot garlic jelly and jalapeno sauerkraut for my father. I also went back to the Studio Museum in Harlem to get a copy of the Africa Comics catalogue.

We returned to Syracuse around 10 p.m., to find a few inches of snow on the ground! Finally! I was so happy to finally see snow. Unfortunately it rained today and washed away any remnants of winter prettiness.

In other news, zingmagazine finally called and now I have an internship! Next weekend I'm going back to NY to check out some apartments that I found on good ole' Craig's List, then the fillowing week I'm moving there! I'll still be returning to Syracuse Mondays through Wednesdays for my two classes a week, but I'll be living in NY four days a week. Hooray hooray horray hooray!!!

I'm so happy I'm finally moving to NY.

Last review of the trip

2007-01-09T00:43:00.001-05:00

Here is the official review I wrote about the Museum of Sex's exhibit on Japanese comics:

Working Title:
When Worlds Collide: Porn in the museum

A dark room with black walls, small windows cut into each at varying heights so that one must stand on toe or crouch down, face pressed to the hole, to see inside. A peep show? Not quite, though a look within does reveal nudity, prostitution, and all manner of graphic sexual behavior. Set a few inches into the windows of the walls are Japanese prints and drawings detailing sexual escapades dating from the Edo Period (1603-1867) all the way up to modern day’s pornographic manga (comics).

On display through March 6 at New York’s Museum of Sex, Peeping, Probing & Porn: Four Centuries of Graphic Sex in Japan provides an intimate glimpse into the evolution of sex trade and gender roles in Japan, and chronicles the country’s relationship with the western world and its own rapid modernization.

The Edo-era woodblock prints that begin the exhibit feature prostitutes in action within the brothel district. Most include startlingly detailed depictions of colorful engorged genitalia, the artists not shying away from bodily fluids and closeups of penetration. By the time Commodore Perry arrived to force the opening of Japan’s ports in 1854, scenes of rape and sex with demons and animals appeared, a reflection of the West’s invasion. Then western-style clothing shows up and women’s roles appear less victimized, the notes accompanying the pictures pointing out joyful facial expressions and consensual relationships.

Manga exploded after a WWII ban was lifted. Hentai (pornographic manga) now depicts every type of sexual activity and relationship imaginable, signaling a less repressive society in which women are no longer submissive slaves. Wide age gaps, bestiality, and gay relationships are common themes.

The exhibit’s dark walls and bright red floor, small viewing windows, and fabric screens hanging from the ceiling to divide the room into chronological sections all add up to a sense that visitors are participants in a peep show. The copious number of written explanations, however, also provide ample historical context. This mix of sexuality and intellectualism almost desexualizes the pornography, yet the graphic nature of the images keeps it firmly entrenched in masturbatory fodder, making for a uniquely paradoxical museum show.

The end is near...

2007-01-08T23:58:00.001-05:00

Only one and a half days left of the NY trip! So sad...
Here is today's recap:

We started out workshopping our reviews. I was with Michael Kimmelman, the chief art critic for the NY Times. Crazy, right? He was fantastic. He pointed out all this stuff that needed to be tweaked in our reviews, while still somehow making me feel like I'm a halfway decent writer. And I agreed with everything he suggested. I suppose that's what happens when you spend a couple decades honing your craft: you end up knowing your shit. Hopefully I will find time to fiddle with the Kimsooja review and post it here again.

We had lunch with the critics (the other two were Alex Ross, chief music critic for The New Yorker, and Megan O'Rourke, culture editor for Slate.com). Lunch was also great, as conversation with Kimmelman came easily and we all found plenty to say. It's really inspiring to meet all these prolific people in my own field. It really gives me hope that I will one day end up with a career that I adore, though I do recognize that getting to that place will take a lot of time and hard work and putting myself out there.

After lunch we had almost an hour and a half to kill, so I got to take a much-needed nap. Then we went to the Studio Museum in Harlem, which was having an exhibit on African comics. I was actually going to check out the exhibit last time I was in the city (about four weeks ago), but didn't have time. I also read an article about African comics in the most recent issue of Zink Magazine, which made me want to see it even more. The museum is actually closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but they opened up just for our class for two hours today, and gave us a discussion with the director, Thelma Golden, who was wonderfully articulate and had so much to say. I only wish we'd had more time, because I wanted to read all the comics and there were a ton. Also, most of them are in French, which I can read, but it takes about three times longer than reading the same thing in English. I may actually go back Wednesday just to buy the catalogue of the comics, even though the book is ridiculously expensive. I love comics so much, and these African ones are something totally new and unique for me, so I have to have them. It's a compulsion.

We had dinner at "Sylvia's Restaurant," which is apparently a famous institution. It was certainly the best soul food I've ever had. And there was so much! It was unlimited cornbread, fried chicken, fried fish, barbeque ribs, collard greens, spicy rice, potato salad, and then banana pudding with crumbly stuff for dessert. It was SO GOOD. I definitely gorged myself silly on cornbread.

Tomorrow is our last workshop and then in the evening, WE GET TO ATTEND A TAPING OF THE DAILY SHOW!!! I am beyond excited. I adore Jon Stewart and want to marry him. Also, we get to have dinner with one of the writers. SQUEEEEEEEEE!!! So exciting!

I am going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming back to Syracuse. Yes, I love my home; yes, I love my parents; yes, I love school. But being in NY just makes everything so much easier. There is a larger variety of more art here, and being so immersed in culture makes writing about the arts come so naturally. It just flows out of me with nowhere near the amount of struggling I experience in Syracuse. I wish zing and ArtNews would hurry up and get back to me so that I'd know whether I'll be spending next semester here...

Working title: Life in Progress: Kimsooja’s fleeting photos.

2007-01-08T01:23:00.001-05:00

Becoming a star of the art world is no easy task. One must have the right style at the right moment, and even then, fame is most often a fleeting fad. How appropriate, then, that Korean artist Kimsooja’s current photography exhibition, at the Peter Blum Gallery in Chelsea, discusses the passage of time.

A Wind Woman, on display through Jan. 13, consists of a group of large-scale color photographs (roughly three feet wide by two feet high) that are stills from her 2003 video of the same name. Kimsooja shot the video while driving in Hawaii, with the camera shutter open at length so as to capture the movement of the landscape as she passed by.

Most of the photographs have placid clouds in the background, while glimpses of what are presumably foliage and contours of the land blur horizontally in the foreground. Dark lines trespass across each photo, exposing the photographer’s movement.

While standing in front of the photos, there is a distinctive sense that the scene is passing you by, not that you’re moving past it. The pictures urge the viewer to hurry, as though time is running by. Since the movement is already captured on film, however, forever sealing it in constant motion, attempts to catch up are a waste of time.

The very first photo in the array is nearly all white, with only very pale grey blobs. The last one is all black. The white evokes birth, with the following photographs life, and the stark black presumably death. It’s a seemingly heartless way of looking at the world. You’re born, life passes you by in an instant, and then it’s over. But within each fast-paced photo, the clouds in the background remain still. The static clouds are the moments that matter enough to stick with you.

Human existence is comparative to a drop in the ocean of time. Kimsooja’s photographs resonate with this short history, and the even shorter life span of each individual. Yet they’re also optimistic, reminding us that to cherish and remember something is to keep it still despite time’s attempts to steal it away.

more NY

2007-01-08T00:00:00.001-05:00

Time for another NYC update:

Friday we started out with a tour of the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library. Since my focus is visual arts, this resource may come in less handy for me than for some of my compatriots. It was, however, still amazing. They have archives of everything. They have newspaper clippings from what appeared to be every play that's ever been performed in the U.S. There were filmed stage shows that you could watch, all kinds of photographs and documents, costume and set notes (including fabric swatches! Be still my fabric-loving heart...). It was incredible. Unfortunately, you're only allowed to use their resources if you're doing legitimate research. So I couldn't go there just to look at costume sketches all day or watch different adaptations of Shakespeare just for fun. Sad...

We had lunch with John Rockwell, who has been a music critic, dance critic, NY Times editor, among other things in a number of fields. He was very nice, and what I could manage to overhear was interesting, but for the most part, I couldn't hear anything he was saying because the seating was all spread out. Also, the waiter was hilarious. He kept interrupting us mid-sentence when he brought out food. And when dessert came, he walked over and positively yelled "Key lime tart!" out of nowhere, with no warning. Kathleen and I cracked up.

Next we attended the ballet rehearsal (which turned out to be of "Sleeping Beauty," not "Swan Lake"). It was so neat. We got to see the director actually stop the dancers and make comments and changes. We got to see mistakes, which you never see when you attend a performance (how do they do that?). I wish we could have seen the actual performance too, though, as a comparison would have been appreciated. (Plus I love ballet.)

At night we saw part one of "The Coast of Utopia" (there are three parts). It was so good. It starred Ethan Hawke (lovely) as a pretentious philosophy (aka bullshit)-spouting Russian. I'm a bit hazy on the details, as it jumped around in time and there were a ton of characters, but I think the general gist of the plot is Ethan Hawke's character (Michael) sympathizes with the Decembrists (or maybe he is one, I'm not entirely sure...), and he wants Russia to modernize after the western world's example. At the end of the first part, he gets banished to Siberia for his "anti-government" activity. The costumes, the acting, the lighting, the set and scene changes... they were all superb. Seriously. Go see this play. All three parts if you can.

Yesterday we explored galleries in Chelsea, which made me oh so very happy. We started with Kimsooja's photographs, which I reviewed. (See above to read it, it should be the next blog post after this one.) We also saw Cecily Kahn's super bright abstract paintings, which I fell in love with, and Edgar Martins' absolutely beautiful, haunting photographs of a Portuguese beach at night. Lastly, we saw Janis Kounellis' sculptures, which I wasn't really that into. I don't know what the artist's intention was, but they all reminded me of torture chambers. There were these wire beds wrapped in strips of fabric, with the surface painted a rust color... they looked bloody to me, like someone had chopped people up on top of them. Scary.

(I'll post photos of this stuff and further comments when I get back to Syracuse. I don't have the right cord with me, so I can't transfer my pics to the computer while I'm here.)

We also had a studio visit with painter Pat Lipsky, but I wasn't that into the paintings she showed us either. I did get a look at a book of some more of her work, though, and I liked some of the stuff in the book a lot. Pat herself, however, was fantastic. I wish I could do studio visits all the time. It's fascinating to listen to artists talk about the mental and physical processes that go into creating a piece of work. I'm also a firm believer that knowing what goes into a piece of art informs your criticism by leagues. I guess as a bit of an artist myself, I just don't see how you can grasp an art form without experiencing its creation to a certain extent yourself. I don't believe that people with no artistic experience can't be critics, I just think that making art helps you appreciate it in a way that non-artists can't quite understand.

At night we attended the NY Philharmonic, which was thankfully a short performance, because I was very tired by this point. They played Beethoven's violin concerto first, with soloist Pinchas Zukerman. He was incredible. Who knew the violin could make such crazy, high pitched (yet somehow pleasing) squeals. The second piece was Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which was absolutely phenomenal. This is the piece of music that accompanies the dinosaurs in "Fantasia." It is so chaotic, and loud, and brash, and awsome. It was just the thing to wake me up enough to go out for some chow with classmates. We ended up at a Mexaican place called Cosmic Cantina, which had yummy, but unfortunately very small, quesadillas. And then bed at about 2 a.m.

Today was our one and only free day, so I slept super late and it was glorious. I didn't do much, started out wandering around Chinatown for a bit in search of this underground mall that I went to with other people once years ago, but I couldn't find it. Lappy told me what street it was on (even which block), but after walking back and forth down the one little block, I still couldn't figure out where the hell its entrance was. It's either totally inconspicuous, or I'm just blind (or both!).

I met up with Andre and we got lunch and wandered around for a while. We eventually split, and I went to the Museum of Sex. Their exhibit on Japanese comics was really good. There was lots to read and they had a vast, vast array of pornographic Ukiyo-e (woodblock) prints and some manga. The ukiyo-e prints were really creepy. Japanese artists used to depict genitalia (especially penises) as really scary-looking. I noticed that the comics really outlined Japanese history, though, with the earliest prints picturing brothels and the sex trade, then a lot of sex with animals and demons and rape when the western world exerted its influence just before and then after Commodore Perry's arrival. Then all the characters started wearing western clothes and women's roles became less submissive and victimized

Manga was banned in WWII, so you next saw crude homemade drawings, and then post WWII saw the development of manga as we now know it. And by now manga tackles every aspect of "liberated," "deviant," or "perverse" sexuality that you can imagine. Bestiality, boys' love (yaoi), underage activity... Japanese comics have it all. I see it as a result of a much less repressive society, though the lack of repression is still debatable compared to the west, I think. But regardless, it's obviously far less repressive than the Edo Period. Manga also depicts women and men in all different societal relationships now (dominant vs. submissive, old age with a young'un etc.), which is pretty revolutionary compared to the always dominant (and often domineering) role of the man in both art and society in the past.

Okay, it is definitely time for sleep. Workshop tomorrow.

in NY once again

2007-01-04T23:54:00.001-05:00

I've been back in NYC since last Saturday. Saturday through Tuesday morning I was just here for fun and to celebrate New Years (which was fantastic, by the way). I have been far too occupied with school stuff since meeting up with my arts journalism classmates Tuesday, so this is going to be a long entry recapping what I've done thus far. Enjoy.

Saturday I met Lappy in the city and we got dinner at a small, cute place that I can't remember the name of. The tables were chalkboards, though, so we could draw while we waited for our food. Perfect for us art kids. I hadn't seen her since I graduated, so it was wonderful to see a familiar face and catch up on our lives, etc. We walked around the city for a couple hours after that, ate some Cold Stone, then spent the night at her place in Westchester.

Sunday we slept ridiculously late and went to the city again, but split up to go to different parties. I met up with Jon and that whole crew from undergrad, and we went to a party at their friend Ann's beautiful apartment in Brooklyn. I miss those guys something awful and it was spectacular to hang out with all the people I used to see every day. I also chatted it up with some new kids, a couple of whom I exchanged e-mail addresses with. This was by far the best New Years I've ever had.

Monday evening Lappy and I returned to her house, where I read scanlations of Nana (it's a manga by Ai Yazawa) all night. The scanlations picked up about one chapter after the last chapter I'd read in Shojo Beat Magazine, so I missed a key part of the story, but everything that happened after that key point was the opposite of what I was hoping would happen. It was horribly depressing. Yazawa is a manga goddess. I find myself completely emotionally invested in her comics, even though when you get right down to it, they're basically just soap operas. Her talent for drawing expressive faces and for writing believable dialogue suck me right in.

Tuesday I went to the new MoMA (finally). I was kind of disappointed, actually. They have an incredible collection, and it's all organized on the walls really well, and I like the high ceilings. But I didn't like the floor layout at all. Instead of each floor being one meandering loop so that you can walk straight from one end to the other without missing anything, it had offshoots of rooms all over the place so that you had to retrace your steps much of the time to see everything.

In the evening, I met up with the rest of my arts journalism program and we saw the Broadway musical, "The Drowsy Chaperone." It's a play within a play. A guy talks to the audience about how much he loves this musical ("The Drowsy Chaperone") from the 30s, and when he puts the soundtrack on, the musical comes to life in his living room for the audience to see. The mini-musical was really doofy, though. It was about a famous Broadway star questioning whether she really wanted to get married (leaving her fame behind in the process) on the eve of her wedding. The "chaperone" was her consistently drunk maid of honor. Other cheesy characters are involved in the preparations, and "hilarity" ensues. The costumes and the set were gorgeous, and the "man in chair" character was amusing, but overall the whole thing was just too silly for my taste.

Yesterday we toured the New York Times offices, which was really cool. It makes me wonder if I'll ever see the inside again (from a desk, perhaps??). Lunch was spent with Jared Hohlt, culture editor at New York Magazine. He was very nice, though I must add that NY Mag never responded when I applied for an internship. Not even a polite rejection. Boo. (Not that it has anything to do with Hohlt, he was great.)

We next went to the Morgan Library & Museum, where I saw "Bob Dylan's American Journey," Saul Steinberg illustrations, and drawings by Fragonard and his contemporaries. The Dylan exhibit was so-so. It was a ton of stuff in a small, cramped area. It was interactive, in that you could listen to all his records from 1956-66 in their entirety, so that was a plus. And there were a lot of handwritten documents, including song lyrics, which was pretty amazing to see. The Steinberg stuff was pretty good, but not fantastic. The explanation printed on the wall claimed that he did set design, but there weren't any sketches or props from his designs on display. I did enjoy the drawings that were there, though. There was the classic New Yorker cover of the view of the rest of the world from NYC's perspective, and some collages he made out of self-designed rubber stamps, which I liked a lot. The Fragonard drawings were absolutely beautiful. I reviewed them for Wednesday's assignment, and will post my review after some more editing.

Then at night we saw "A Chorus Line." Most of the other AJ kids didn't seem too crazy about it, but I enjoyed it. I hadn't known anything about it ahead of time, though, and had only heard one song beforehand ("One Singular Sensation," which I didn't even know was from this show), so I think it helped that I went in with so few expectations.

Wow. Long day. Today I was exhausted.

Today we workshopped our reviews. My group was with Robert Ivy, an editor from Architectural Record Magazine. He was really helpful and encouraging. Lunch was spent with him and Eric Grode, a theatre critic at the New York Sun, copy editor at the New York Times, and an SU alumni. (Talk about accomplished.)

In the evening we had a networking party, which didn't turn out to be too successful for me. I talked to a number of people, but no visual arts people showed up, not even the couple who'd RSVP'ed. I was really hoping to meet this one woman from Phaidon Press, which is probably my favorite publisher. They put out a lot of art books, especially some absolutely beautiful collections of photography. But she didn't come.

Lastly, we went to Jazz at Lincoln Center (which is actually located at Columbus Circle), and this was incredible. The venue was gorgeous. It was a smallish club full of small tables that each had these really cool lamps that were basically gigantic eggs made of fogged glass with a lightbulb inside. I really want one. I'll have to check ebay. The ceiling had a dropped lip where it met the wall, which snaked all around the room in a wiggling shape. Then one wall was just a giant window with the most spectacular view I've ever seen inside the city, especially at night. There weren't any buildings obstructing the immediate view, but there was a wide cluster of skyscrapers further in the distance that had plenty of lights on. And I hate to admit it, but the glow around the buildings (caused by light pollution) just added to the scene. It was classic NY. Oh yeah, and the jazz was pretty good too (a quintet called "Horizon") considering I'm not much of a jazz person, but I was definitely paying more attention to the view and people watching.

And once again I am going to bed far later than I would prefer after a ridiculously busy day. Tomorrow will be a tour of the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library, a visit to "Swan Lake" rehearsal (which I am very excited about), and another play (Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia: The Voyage"), but that last event will be after getting FOUR WHOLE HOURS OF FREE TIME. Finally! I'm either going to go to the Museum of Sex, which is currently showing an exhibit on Japanese comics, will head down to St. Mark's to do some window shopping in the punk shops, or may seek out a decent tattoo shop, as I'd like to get one done while I'm here if I have time.

I heart NY

2006-12-22T01:30:00.002-05:00

Why I Love New York City:

There are the usual reasons: the great shopping, the "melting pot" factor, it's the cultural mecca of the U.S., there is always something to do at all hours of the day and night... But the number one reason is that there is art everywhere. Literally, everywhere you look, there is either graffiti, a museum or gallery, a piece of sculpture, etc. etc. I was in NY for some internship interviews Monday through Wednesday and managed to remember to bring my camera for once. Check it out:

This is the view from inside the shops at Columbus Circle. So pretty. Also, they changed color. Here it is in green:

Then outside Columbus Circle, I found an outdoor market where people were selling mostly homemade stuff, like knitwear, jewelry, soaps; and if it wasn't handmade, it was quirky and cool in some other way. Take for instance...

THE WALL OF PUPPETS! These were so cool. They looked like the puppets from the TV show, Crank Yankers. I bought the little boy with blue skin and yellow hair (bottom center, between a black boy in a blue outfit and a white girl in a pink dress) for my young cousin.

When I finally headed back to Grand Central, they were playing xmas music and a kaleidoscope of images of the city was being projected onto the walls and ceiling. I definitely stood there gawking for a good eight minutes. I wish I'd been quicker with my camera because one of the photographs was of lots of taxis, and it looked really cool, but I did manage to capture some of the Chrysler Building:

Oh, how I love this city. Although Syracuse has its charms, and the art scene here is growing by leaps and bounds, I still can't wait to move to New York. No other place in the world can compare to it.

P.S. I went to the Brooklyn Museum Wednesday, and fell absolutely in love with these two paintings: (Of course I was dumb and neglected to write down their titles or artists, though.)

Just look at the expression and body position of the one up top. Though her face is definitely out of proportion, it's still somehow lovely in its fright. And the fabric? The skirt portion is amazing. The talent it requires to paint transparent fabric and with appropriate folds and wrinkles is just mind-boggling.

As for the guy at the bottom, I suppose I would say that I understand how he feels as of late. Something invisible pushing him down, but still struggling to stay up, though mostly in vain. He just looks... broken.

Last paper of the semester

2006-12-12T23:42:00.001-05:00

For my magazine editing class, I had to write an extra paper since I was taking it as an independent study, since it was technically an undergrad level class. It's a magazine critique for three consecutive issues of the publication of my choice, and it had to be about eight pages long. I thought I would have trouble filling up that many pages, but I turned out to have more to say than even fit on eight pages. I chose Marie Claire, which has a new editor in chief that I think is doing great things. Pictures of the issues are to the left and here is my (very long) critique:

Marie Claire: September-November 2006

Overview

As a reader of Marie Claire for the past eight or so years of my life, I’ve seen a lot of changes within this magazine. For a while I didn’t really pay that much attention to the publication, though; I just read it when my mother happened to pick up a copy when she bought groceries. That changed in March 2001, when Marie Claire started their V Day campaign to end violence against women. One article in this issue changed my opinion on the magazine and probably my entire perspective on the world.

Sandwiched between “I’m Proud to be overtly sexy/ high maintenance/ materialistic/ ambitious/ selfish” and “Which outfit costs $300 vs. $3000?” is an article about a group of Bosnian women who’d been raped and tortured by soldiers every day for months. They were trying to get rape classified as a war crime so that their torturers could be prosecuted. It was disturbing, shocking, and totally unknown to me before reading this article.

This was the first time I noticed that Marie Claire has articles on more important things than makeup, clothes, and sex; and I have actually kept this issue all the way to now. Since 2001, Marie Claire has waffled between focusing on real issues that affect women and the vapid material we’ve come to expect from most women’s magazines. The September-November issues at hand are a giant leap in the “real issues” direction. The magazine is now wildly different than its 2001 incarnation. It barely resembles its contemporaries anymore. It has far fewer articles on makeup and clothes, but the ones that are left make use of stunning artwork and interesting angles (such as “Morning After Hair” in Oct [about how to tame your tresses after spending the night in someone else’s bed]).

Marie Claire’s new look and features are fantastic in so many ways. The only problem is, I would worry that people who liked all their fashion and beauty content may stop reading it. I suppose it’ll have to be a work in progress.

Design/Art

September’s issue was the first one I noticed as being extremely different. It has actress Maggie Gyllenhaal on the cover. This picture is totally unexpected and unique for a woman’s magazine. First of all, the background is black; it almost blends into her dark brown hair. Then she has heavy black eye makeup and a black dress. It’s almost goth. What a contrast to the perkiness and neon colors of its shelf neighbors. The only bits of color are her lovely light blue eyes (most likely airbrushed to be that color, but it looks fantastic), red lips, and a bright green apple she’s holding up to her face. This photo is leagues ahead of the smiley, cleavage-in-your-face girls that make up more typical cover fodder. It is art; and it would definitely draw the attention of a newsstand shopper, which I gather was the point.

The contents page that follows is located a mere page after the cover, instead of shoving 80 pages of advertisements in between. Plus it looks simple and clean, which makes it much easier to find the page for whatever article you may want to browse. In addition, the rest of the magazine doesn’t stray far from the contents page’s style, giving the entire thing a sense of cohesion and organization. For some reason, September doesn’t appear to have a contributing writers’ page, but October and November do, and it looks great. Each contributor has a different size photo with all of them joined in the center of the page. Then instead of having a third-person description, they each have a mini Q & A session. It’s all very clever.

From there we hit a few snags. The magazine starts out with a “shopping” section that’s rather ugly. You almost miss it at first because there’s no introduction. The first page looks like an ad and the next 10 or so consist of a mish-mash of photos of pieces of clothing. It’s completely stepped away from the organized simple look we started with.

Moving on, the photography that accompanies the “real” articles has turned into something truly incredible. September’s story on designer shopping in Dubai opens with a two-page spread of a woman in black head scarf and robe perusing a rack of Technicolor robes. It’s colorful, visually appetizing, and captures the spirit of the entire story. In the same issue, a story on illegal immigrants opens with another two-page spread, this time of a crosswalk covered in people, shot from above. Small labels point to some of the crossers, describing the person’s immigrant status in just a few words. It’s clever and appropriate to the story.

The fashion shoots have become quite lovely and artistic as well, and the “101 Ideas” section has taken a turn for the much, much better. It used to be just a bunch of squares on a page, each encapsulating an outfit in roughly the same color and style. Now there are fewer outfits with more white space between them. It’s less confusing to look at, and the larger photos allow the reader to actually get a decent look at the clothing. The best art by far, though, is found in the magazine’s photo essays. September has a montage of close-ups of the unusual looking body parts that play a role in a number of women’s careers. A firewoman’s arm, a ballerina’s feet, a violinist’s hands. These photographs tell far more about the women’s lives than the ensuing first-person blurbs.

November also has a photo essay whose pictures are worth innumerable words. “Love is a Battlefield” consists of blurry, grainy, and hazy photographs of women who live on a Marine Corps base, whose husbands (or fathers, brothers, etc.) are currently serving duty overseas. Most of the women aren’t looking at the camera, but their eyes still loudly tell the reader how sad or worried or hopeful they are. This is the kind of feature one would expect to find in Newsweek or Time, but the fact that it focuses on women makes it fit in just right with the new Marie Claire.

Editorial

I personally could not be happier that Marie Claire is focusing so much more on real issues. It appears to be a result of the backlash against the Ashlee Simpson article in which she insisted over and over that girls should be happy with how they look, then got a nose job right around the same time the issue hit the newsstand. I’m also impressed that the magazine kept some of the features they used to have, but improved upon them.

“10 Best to Do,” for example, has always been a really informative little feature; it describes in a few well-chosen words ten upcoming books, movies, and bands or CDs. An addition to the “10 Best” feature is the new “Culture” section, in which the magazine does more in-depth reviews of new books, film, and music. Within the same feature, they also list a few similar companions that have already been available for a while.

Marie Claire has also maintained some of the lighthearted, but slightly less superficial, articles, allowing the magazine to stay safely rooted in the “women’s magazine” category. September’s “The Ex Files” chronicles four women’s ex-boyfriends (and girlfriends). It’s not anything revelatory, but makes for some good vicarious fun. Pitting one lifestyle choice against another has also been a staple for as long as I can remember, and the new version does not disappoint. October has a story in which one woman could only communicate through computers and text messages and one through face-to-face interaction for a week. Whose week will go worse? This type of story is usually funny and allows the reader to compare the lifestyles in the article to her own.

Hands down, the best new part of this magazine is the “What I Love About Me” feature. This includes page after page of close-ups of everyday women who then explain their “beauty statement.” They choose things such as their large nose, weird hairstyle, makeup choices, or facial piercings. It’s so refreshing to see such a variety of non-modelesque smiling women who are happy with themselves and know how beautiful they are.

As for the articles on “real” issues, Marie Claire seems to have always had a knack for finding stories on issues around the world that are pertinent to women, and that no one knows about. I call it the “Who knew?” factor. September’s issue includes “Crime & Beauty,” a story about beauty pageants held in a Siberian prison, in which the winner oftentimes gets early release. October includes a story on female rescue squads in Islamic countries. These squads are necessary in natural disaster-prone countries where women are forbidden to be touched by men outside their families. November has an article on female journalists in the Middle East that is incredibly engrossing. All of these stories are on topics that just aren’t reported on in traditional news outlets, but they’re absolutely fascinating.

One aspect of Marie Claire that is really impressive is their ability to get interviews with seemingly untouchable people. November includes a lengthy article and interview with Lynndie England, the woman in the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib. This was the first interview she gave since being put in prison. The article covers her relationship with her former boyfriend and “ringleader” of the prison scandal, as well as her interactions with her infant son. It humanizes her without placing blame squarely on someone else. It’s very well-written overall, and is missing the annoying “cheerleader” voice that has permeated Marie Claire’s writing in the past.

September featured a wealth of similarly serious articles, including a fashion photo spread in which the model posed amid politicians, joined by snippets about each one. One story is about National Public Radio’s Baghdad bureau chief, Jamie Tarabay. Unfortunately, this one falls prey to the cheerleader intonation mentioned above, as one of its line breaks has the title “Craving a Miniskirt.” I realize that she has to wear certain clothing to avoid standing out too much, but did they really need to focus on something as trivial as a miniskirt? They could have used sunglasses, because Tarabay mentions that Iraqis like to be able to look you in the eye; or perhaps the food she says she misses, since food is a universal tie to home, unlike a miniskirt. It’s just too cutesy for the material at hand.

This “cheerleader” voice should really stay with clothing, makeup, and fluffy feature articles, and nothing else. It almost mocks the seriousness of the bigger issues. The editor’s letter has really unpleasant little catch phrases. In the November letter’s mention of its interview with actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, editor Joanna Coles writes, “Sounds like a script for a happy home life to us!” with regard to Gellar’s marriage. It made me want to gag. I suppose it could be argued that the magazine is just trying to talk to women in their own language, but I think that idea just doesn’t give women enough credit.

Speaking of celebrities, the articles on them could really use some work. The Gellar feature is just a page of questions and answers with no real writing. There isn’t even an introduction. It’s literally just a big letter “Q” and a colon. September’s story on Maggie Gyllenhaal is a bit better since it involves actual writing, but it’s just not that interesting. It doesn’t tell anything new or unusual about her. October’s cover story on Sarah Jessica Parker is far better; it focuses on the success of the launch of her first perfume and the work she’s putting in on her next scent. Although designing perfume may not be the most important decision she ever makes, it’s a side of the actress that you don’t see through television shows and the red carpet. Having a real focus created an actual story; and its length of a page and a half is just right.

Overall Impression

Marie Claire’s new look, simply put, is fantastic. Its articles and even small features are all very clever, sometimes witty, and mostly intelligently written. It has whittled down its fashion and beauty departments to shorter pieces that get to the point quickly and feature absolutely gorgeous photography. I especially love the close-ups of faces and makeup (a 12-inch vibrant red chunk of lipstick looks sparkly and delicious on a stark white background).

The magazine as a whole still seems to be a bit schizophrenic, though. The covers, for example, vary wildly from month to month. September was the goth Gyllenhaal/apple photo, October featured a more traditional laughing toothy-grinned Parker with windblown hair, and November a somewhat dull black and white close-up of a non-smiling Gellar. The Gyllenhaal photography inside is almost too edgy for this publication (she’s wearing crazy pouffy hair and the backdrop consists of a room covered in every inch by greenish-tinged grimy newspaper), while Parker’s is again traditional (just pretty shots of her in the perfume lab).

Then you have November’s article on the fact that women lag behind men when it comes to managing money—it’s immediately followed by “20 Things to Get Before You’re 40.” Not 20 things to do, 20 things to get, i.e. buy. And it includes things like “a big-ass TV” and “a serious ride” (luxury car, that is). These articles should not be in the same issue, much less separated by a mere page of ads. They stand in complete contrast to one another.

Despite the kinks that still need to be ironed out, however, Marie Claire’s changes are a welcome addition. I would still worry that some readers won’t like the fact that there are so many fewer makeup and clothing features, but the occasional special section would make up for that. If you flip over the October issue, in fact, you’ll find 78 pages of just beauty advice and articles. So long as Marie Claire keeps going in this same direction, I think it’ll do nothing but improve. The schizophrenia will probably work itself out as the new editor sinks into her position more.

Suggestions

Cut the cutesy stuff. Save it for superficial topics and purely entertainment articles. When it comes to the editor’s letter, leave the exclamation marks out. This is the very first thing readers will see after the table of contents, and it should speak for the rest of the issue.

Perhaps introduce some new subjects beyond clothes, makeup, and world issues. There’s more to being a woman than appearance and current events. There needs to be more about women’s health. Where is the article on the HPV vaccine? This is exactly the kind of topic Marie Claire should be writing on.

How about food and exercise? Recipes for tasty snacks that cover a gamut of fat and calories would be good. It could be set up like a timeline, with more fat on the left and less on the right. An article on “before bedtime” exercises that you can do on your floor (or even on the bed! That would be different.) would also be useful. These wouldn’t have to be monthly features, but there should definitely be more on these topics.

Lastly, the celebrity features either need to be more interesting, or need to go. Most of the writing in this publication is stellar, but the celebrity stories are dull thus far. If there isn’t anything particularly intriguing or news-worthy about the woman, just make it be a photo essay. The photography has proven to be more telling than some of the articles. So as long as it’s done well with a decent introduction, I don’t think anything would be lost.

winter fun

2006-12-09T21:30:00.001-05:00

It was snowing the other day, and it was really pretty, so I took a picture. The photo uploader thingy didn't feel like working that day, so I'm trying to post again now. Here is my street:

Those would be my tire tracks. So pretty. But look how unfestive my street is--there is only one house with xmas lights (on the right).

Here are the pumpkins my parents grew at our cabin. Cute!

Too bad they're frozen now. So much for homemade pumpkin pie...

And here are Jon, Raquel, and Dante doing the Carl dance at the ice skating rink in Clinton Square:

Unfortunately the rink closed at 8 p.m., not 10, so we couldn't actually ice skate (hence our footware of sneakers and boots instead of skates). But I'm really adoring Clinton Square lately. The buildings surrounding it are all made of brick and stone and the rink is all lit up for Christmas. So lovely. I am loving winter this year.

Christmas in November

2006-11-26T21:29:00.001-05:00

Last night Bob, Jon, and I went to Clark's Ale House for a couple hours. When we first got there, a guy was playing the accordion in the corner. How very unexpected. Sadly, he only stayed for about half an hour after we three got there, though. Afterwards we walked around Armory Square a bit looking for this church that may or may not actually be located downtown. I was hoping to take a picture of it for part of the cross-platform assignment, but the only reference I had to go on was a purposely blurry photograph of the church, with no address or name listed, by photographer Rik Pinkcombe (that's who my project is on).

We didn't find it, but we did end up wandering over to Clinton Square, and I suggested we check out the Christmas Tree. Such a fantastic idea! It was all lit up, as Friday night was the lighting ceremony. It was also ridiculously warm out, like 50 degrees, which is highly unusual for Syracuse. Normally it's below freezing and there's a foot of snow on the ground by now. So anyways, the tree is right on the edge of the little outdoor ice skating rink, so we played on the ice in our sneakers for a while. It was such great fun! I definitely need to make ice skating in Clinton Square a regular plan this winter.

Playing under the Christmas tree's light definitely put me in the holiday spirit, which up until now I was seriously lacking. I was a regular Scrooge. (Though can you blame me, what with all the Christmas decorations and stupid carols playing at the mall starting a month ago? Yech...)

a new love

2006-11-22T16:57:00.001-05:00

I bought the new Be Good Tanyas CD, Hello Love, after listening to NPR feature them on "All Things Considered" the other day, and it is such a good record. The Be Good Tanyas are a Canadian female folk trio who I was introduced to through their song "The littlest birds," which is the theme song to the show "Weeds." They have this pretty, melancholy sound that I can't get enough of. One of my favorite songs off the new CD is "Nobody Cares For Me." It's very self-deprecating (or emo, if you will), but it's just so damn pretty and soothing. I was sitting on the floor of my room listening to it over and over last night. Here are the lyrics:

Lonesome is I, I wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
Lonesome is I, I wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
It was a bright moon light night, the moon shining bright,
when you and I made love
Your heart wasn't true, I'll say unto you,
I moaned like a turtle dove
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
I'm coming home, no more to roam,
darling I'm coming home
I'm coming home, no more to roam,
darling I'm coming home
Down in the pasture, where the birds are singing
You can’t hear nothing but what the birds are saying
Down in the pasture, where the birds are singing
You can’t hear nothing but what the birds are saying
It was a bright moon light night, the moon shining bright,
when you and I made love
Your heart wasn't true, I'll say unto you,
I moaned like a turtle dove
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me
Lonesome is I, wished I could die
Nobody cares for me

The other song that I looooooove is a cover of Prince's "When Doves Cry." They played it on NPR, and I thought it was really cool and different, but then I missed it the first couple times I listened to the CD because there's a minute of dead air before it starts and I apparently thought the CD was over before the song started. So then last night when I finally waited long enough to hear it, I absolutely fell in love with the song. I don't know which of the girls does the singing on this one, because it doesn't say in the liner notes, but her voice is husky and quiet, sort of like a whisper. She has a subtle vulnerability that works really with these lyrics. Plus the song overall sounds wildly different from the original. The only thing it has in common is the lyrics and the basic tune. I hate when a band covers a song and it ends up sounding exactly like the first version. I mean, what's the point? But this sounds distinctly like The Be Good Tanyas, not like a Prince song sung by a girl.

The point is, go buy this CD. It's fantastic.

new blog

2006-11-19T16:15:00.001-05:00

Up until now, I've been using Livejournal as a "blog," but now that I'm starting to apply to internships (and soon it'll be jobs), I've come to accept that I need a more "professional" blog. So here it is. All the entries prior to this one were the ones I did in Livejournal from this past summer up to now.

How very exciting, no?

P.S. I have to note that I saw "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny" the other day. It was HI-larious. JB and KG are two crazy cats. Then I followed it up with watching "School of Rock" and now I'm severely in the mood for "High Fidelity." It's been a Jack Black week.

neat-O

2006-11-14T23:42:00.001-05:00

Found the coolest webcomic today while surfing around my usual haunts. It's called "Biozoic." The site's description says "On the prehistoric planet of Biozoic, life is short, quick, and brutal. At a lightning pace, creatures of all shapes and sizes fight to stay alive. This mostly improvised and wordless comic with a non-traditional story should appeal to fans of dinosaurs, aliens, monsters, and other creatures."

The creatures are really, really unique. Usually when you see people's renditions of aliens, they're humanoid, but these things take inspiration from dinosaurs and insects, with a little mammalian influences thrown in. So cool. Check it out:

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/gerry/biozoic/series.php

pretty...

2006-11-06T21:42:00.001-05:00

I saw BalletNY on campus last Thursday night, which was the first ballet I've seen since the Nutcracker in elementary school. There was no set, and the performance was a collection of small dances, not one big story. BalletNY is a company that travels around the whole state, instead of just NYC. Check out www.balletny.org if you're curious.

As for the performances, they started out with the Syracuse-appropriate "Orange." The six dancers all wore orange outfits and the stage lights threw orange (and no other colors) onto them. I don't know if this is a regular performance or Syracuse-specific, but it was a nice little hometown touch regardless. The dancing included a lot of modern elements, which were awkward sometimes (like shimmying--I don't really know what that was about), but overall it was still pretty good. (One other thing--the orange outfits with the orange lights made the men's costumes blend into their skin, and they looked kind of naked. It was weird. If anyone has seen the movie "Dogma," think of the scene where Alan Rickman pulls down his pants for Linda Fiorentino.)

The second dance was "Othello," based on Shakespeare's play. Desdemona, Iago, and Othello were the only characters in this performance, and it only lasted about ten minutes. I thought it was okay, but not up to par with the play itself. Jon thought the dancers really conveyed the emotions, but I disagreed. I don't know if it was the dancers or the choreography, but I didn't see any passion between Desdemona and Othello. They did do a really good job of incorporating her scarf into the performance, though. It was wrapped loosely enough so that it would fall off easily (and then Iago stole it, blah, blah... look it up if you're not familiar with the play), and when it was falling off of her, I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be falling off or not--it looked genuinely accidental. Also, I was seriously impressed with stength of the dancer playing Iago. Othello was much taller and thicker him, but Iago picked Othello up by his hips at one point and was tip-toeing around with him in the air.

My favorite dance was the third, "Two's Company." It seemed the most "classical" of the three. It was two men and a woman, and the woman was obviously trying to choose between them. The story is pretty unoriginal, but the dancing was really beautiful. There were lots of swishes and exaggerated slow movements and their bodies were contorted into crazy angles a lot of the time. So pretty... And the lighting was absolutely phenomenal. The whole stage was really dark, but there was a sliver of white light that hit the dancers most of the time. And if they were standing in the right spot on the stage, massive shadows of theirs would hit the side wall of the auditorium, close to the ceiling. It really set the mood.

The last piece was called "Once before, Twice after." It incorporated a lot more modern elements. The four dancers used chairs for a good portion of it, which was weird. It sort of made me think of a strip club. The lighting was once again amazing, though. There were four circles on the stage, which formed a four-leaf clover shape, and then there was varying color and position changes of other lights. The music was also modern, with some techno influences, but it was (thankfully) not like music you'd hear in a club. I liked it a lot, actually.

Overall, I really enjoyed the whole night. And, really, how can you go wrong with tickets costing $2.50??

oh my goodness

2006-10-31T21:33:00.002-05:00

Last night Linda, Bob, and I went to see stand up comedian Michael Ian Black (of I Love the 70s, 80s, 90s fame and Sierra Mist commercials) on campus. He was really funny, and somehow put up with all the embarassingly stupid things people were yelling during the question and answer portion at the end. Somehow Linda had found out ahead of time that there would be a reception afterwards at the Jewish center and that Michael Ian Black would be there. So the three of us went even though Linda was the only Jew among us. She and I were acting like idiotic fangirl stalkers at first, staring at him from across the room and giggling. We each asked him to sign a random magazine we had, which was awkward because everyone else had posters from the show and I had some student activist magazine. We also had Bob take our picture with him with Linda's cell phone camera, which I'm sure came off as equally moronic. Then we got the brilliant idea to ask him to get a drink with us.

We had to wait for all the vapid groupie girls to finish asking him about summer camp (really guys, all Jewish kids go to camp, it's not that special that he did too). And when we asked him, he shockingly said yes, even though he seemed really tired and sick of questions. So the four of us went to the bar at the Sheraton and hung out for two hours. He was really, really mellow and seemed maybe a little depressed, though he was probably just worn out from driving to Syracuse from NYC and dealing with dumb college kids all day. We mostly chatted about our program and just basic things. He only cracked jokes a few times, and of those, it seemed like he was just saying it to entertain us. He seemed like a really normal, mellow guy overall. He's married and said he was planning on taking his kids trick-or-treating for Halloween.

All in all, it was a bit awkward, but it was really nice of him to actually come out with us. In fact, the Hillel woman who was acting as his caretaker-of-sorts seemed quite perturbed when he said he was going with us, and was walking to the Sheraton with us no less (it's only three blocks from the Hillel house). So, yeah, he was pretty cool. Plus when I mentioned that I read comics, he said I can be a "cute comic girl who writes about comics" for a career. (Michael Ian Black thinks I'm cute! Tee-hee.)

I believe Linda said the same thing in her blog, but during his act, he claimed to google himself all the time. So if you come across this, M.I.B., thanks a lot for hanging out with us. You're a swell guy. And Stella is a really funny show.

Oh yeah, and I have to join Linda here as well, and say that he is absolutely adorable and I want to marry him (except for the fact that he's already married).

weekend

2006-10-16T01:47:00.001-04:00

This past weekend was one of the best I've had in a while. Friday was the Tully Free Speech symposium, which was actually far more interesting than I had anticipated, so that was good. Afterwards Dave, Jon, and I got Korean food at Secret Garden, then watched "Wayne's World" and "Dodgeball" with Kathleen. Dave and I stayed up for a while more after the others left, just hanging out, which was cool because I used to stay up super late doing nothing with friends in undergrad, so it's been a while since last doing that.

Saturday Dave and I went to Highly Atomic Vintage, a vintage clothing and record store in Syracuse that turned out to be pretty damn cool. Their stuff cost a bit more than I would care to spend on used clothes and records, so I didn't buy anything. The point of going was to check out the fetish-inspired photography on display there by a local artist anyways. I really loved most of his photos, particularly the ones that used a lot of black and white contrasts. Most also had little shocks of bright color, like a model's red lips or auburn hair, or some other small detail. Really lovely stuff, and very sexy for the most part. I wrote a 300-word review about it for tomorrow's AJ class. And 300 words was tough, let me tell you. I could have spent pages describing every detail of the photos I liked best.

The weather was really, really beautiful, so we then went apple-picking in LaFayette. Of course on the way there, the clouds got more and more dark and ominous, and just as we were finishing picking apples, it started to hail like hell. But then ten minutes later, as we came back out of the apple and whatnot store, the sun was back out and the clouds were completely gone. It was crazy! So then we came back to my house, then went to Wegmans to get some stuff for my parents, and then parted ways. Later Dave, Jon, my sister, and I met up and went to the hip-hop show that Steve from high school was going to perform at. About half a dozen people I knew in high school (and actually liked) ended up being there, so that was really great. And the music was pretty damn good too. We eventually left and all went to an after-party for Jon's brother's comedy troupe, which turned out to be quite fun. It was full of nice people, including a bunch that spoke French! It's been a loooooong time since I've been to a decent house party, so I enjoyed that very, very much. Plus it was fun to go out with my sister. We will have to do so more often.

Today I woke up at noon, which was glorious, and my mother and I did a bit of shopping. I got a corduroy military-style cap, a leopard-print cardigan, and most importantly, Halloween costume supplies! I'm making a quasi-geisha outfit. I already have tabi socks and tatami sandals, so I just have to make the kimono, which I'm keeping short, because that's cuter and more fun. Cannot wait to get started, though I'm not entirely sure when I'll have the time. I finished my re-write of my last review and the review of the photography show for AJ class, and it's only 10:45! I can either go to bed now, and end up waking up at a decent hour tomorrow (and probably do more homework before heading off to school), or do more homework now and get up later tomorrow. Hmmmm...? Is there really any doubt as to which I'll choose? Bed now!

WHY???

2006-10-09T23:44:00.001-04:00

Bec sent me a most frightening link today: http://store.delias.com/item.do?categoryID=821&itemID=46531&sizeFilter=&colorFilter=&brandFilter=

How the heck are stirrup pants back in style??? These have got to be one of the worst crimes of fashion in history. Since when is it flattering to have your crotch pulled six inches below where it's meant to be? Because that is precisely what stirrup pants do. Plain leggings are bad enough; they're ugly as sin. But leggings with stirrups? How can they be back in style? Everyone ridicules 80s clothing, but there seems to be an 80s element in style every year. Leg warmers? Those were pretty big a couple years ago. Leggings are still rearing their ugly, unfortunate heads, and now stirrup pants are inexplicably making a comeback. How is this possible? Have we learned nothing from our past fashion foibles??

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PANTS, PEOPLE???

oh well

2006-10-08T00:00:00.001-04:00

I'm supposed to be treating this "blog" more seriously, posting my opinions on art and whatnot and less on my personal life... and write professionally with no cursing, but...

LOU REED IS A FUCKING GENIUS.

The polite police can stuff it. I finally started listening to the Velvet Underground boxed set tonight (which I received for my birthday almost two months ago). I started with the CD that's a bunch of demos of some of their most popular songs. The songs were basically screwups from when they were recording in the studio. Hearing Lou's unadulterated gravelly, scratchy voice was awsome. And then listening to him curse or laugh when they messed up was really entertaining. And as much as I adore Nico, and love her in "All Tomorrow's Parties," sorry, but Lou just does it better. It was his song, after all. Nico was just put in place by Andy Warhol. Him singing it is so much more genuine. I'm so glad I have these CDs. In fact, I think I'm gonna put one on and do some homework now.

nyc trip

2006-10-05T20:07:00.001-04:00

Finally an update about the trip to NY (three days after I got back, of course):

Friday night I flew out of Syracuse. The plane was delayed. Annoying. The guy next to me on the plane was a sophomore from SUNY Oswego, and would not SHUT UP the whole way. Like 15 minutes before we landed, he finally overheard the girls behind us talking about smoking pot, and they turned out to be from the same college, so he started talking to them instead. I got to NY around 9:30ish and it took about an hour to take the Air Train to Jamaica and then the subway to the club where I met Susan, along with her sisters and some other people she knew. Susan and I chatted and such and eventually I ended up talking to her friend Anthony for most of the night. He was okay, but kind of aggravating because he was drunk and kept whining about how he's fat, bald, and old (none of which were actually true) and kept bringing up awkward conversation topics (like body hair) and also kept talking about all these art exhibits I should see. Pretentious drunks are tiring, especially when they bring up obscure modern artists and expect me to know every name they mention. Remind me not to tell artsy NY people what my field of study is anymore. I ended up practically falling asleep around 2 a.m., so I went back to Susan's sister Jackie's apartment and fell asleep, while Sus and Jackie stayed out until something like 5 a.m. even though Susan had class Saturday morning at 9 a.m.

So Saturday I slept really late for the first time in weeks, then went to the International Photography Museum for three hours. The museum is only two big rooms, but there was so much stuff there. It was organized really well, because even though there was a ton of stuff, it was all spread way out, so it didn't feel cramped. I'm really mad at myself for not writing down the name of this one artist... his (or her, I don't even remember that much) piece was these two MASSIVE (I'm talking like seven feet tall by nine feet wide) crystal clear photographs of a forest at night. But there was no flash, so it was really, really dark, and all you could see was the few tree trunks right in front, and even those were dark grey from the lack of light, with complete black emptiness behind them. It was so ghostly and beautiful. And I was really impressed with the quality, considering how big these were. You could see every little wrinkle in the bark. It was incredible.

Saturday night Susan and I went to a sushi restaurant with Sus' friend Erica. The restaurant was actually pretty cheap. My meal was only $15. The place was interesting... there were disco balls and weird stuff painted on the walls, and a DJ. It was set up like a club, basically. Then we went club/bar-hopping on the lower East Side (I think) with Erica's friend Rachel. First we went to some bar where there happened to be a burlesque show. The show itself was kind of lame because one of the dancers really sucked, but the host was hilarious. He was this monstrously tall gay guy in clear plastic stripper heels and a sparkly bright blue spandex suit from head to toe that had bunny ears and a tail. And he kept making fun of the people sitting in front because apparently they were acting prude. We eventually sauntered over to a couple other places. The first one seemed cool, but Erica and Rachel didn't like it, so they insisted on leaving. Then we found some place called "The Annex," which ended up being unexpectedly cool. They played kind of punk music, but stuff you could dance to, and at one point played "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen. Unfortunately it was a tad too dark, so it was hard to tell if people were cute or not, but nobody really paid us any attention there anyways, so it didn't so much matter.

Sunday Susan and I went to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, and hung out with her friends Jason and Brad. We went to this "artists' show," which turned out to be people selling homemade clothes and buttons, and old records and stuff. Hipster stuff, basically. Then ended up at a park and later got cheap dinner in a Mexican restaurant. I want to move there SO BAD.

Monday I hung out with Jon Hansen, and was going to hang out with Brad again, but didn't so much feel like it later and preferred to hang out with Jon, considering we haven't seen eachother in months. So we walked all over the city for like six hours and talked and talked. It was really cathartic. And we must have walked something like 10 miles. We ended up in Chinatown, South Street Seaport, Union Square, the East Village, walked all the way down Broadway until we reached some sketchy area... it was a lot of walking, needless to say.

Monday night I caught a 9:00 plane back. It was delayed. Again. So I got home late and was totally exhausted. Good times.

The Mix

2006-09-20T02:14:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday saw the official release of The Mix, my grad program's zine-ish type publication that came as a special insert in the local newspaper, The Post Standard. Here is my official page, which you should also all take note is page number 4, which makes it the second article in the thing. Oh yeah, baby! Front of the magazine!

wasted weekend

2006-09-18T02:49:00.001-04:00

I went to the Inner Harbor today with Jon Ross to see a Dave Matthews cover band and a Sublime cover band to review for the Newtimes. I'm not really much of a Dave Matthews fan, and the Sublime band basically sucked. Here is my review:

Title: Just Plain Bad

Sunday was an ideal day to spend at Syracuse’s Inner Harbor. The sun was shining, the temperature was pleasant, and any native would recognize it as possibly the last nice day of the year. You would think it would be the perfect day to see a couple of bands covering songs by two popular and relatively summery-sounding acts.

You would be wrong.

Well, halfway wrong, that is, as the opening band, “One Sweet World,” a Dave Matthews cover band, actually wasn’t too bad. One Sweet World was extremely faithful to the original songs, and even included a saxophone player (who had four different types of sax to choose from) and a violinist.

Lead singer Anthony Iglesias did an admirable job evoking Dave Matthews’ gentle voice, but couldn’t quite reach the high-pitched plateaus Matthews manages. His voice was also a bit scratchier than Matthews, and the signature syllabic emphasis was a bit off at times, but overall it was a valiant try that mostly succeeded.

The best thing about One Sweet World was undoubtedly its violinist. Though all the musicians were clearly talented, the mere existence of the violin gave this band something extra. Because so many of the Dave Matthews Band’s songs include unique and conspicuous violin parts, it is essential that a cover band have a decent fiddler.

If you are a fan of the Dave Matthews Band, One Sweet World will not disappoint. Their set, though, was nearly two hours long, which is highly unusual for an opener. And after One Sweet World’s last song, a Dave Matthews-esque rape of Jimi Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower, it felt like the show should have simply ended.

The headliner, Sublime cover band “Badfish,” started out with Garden Grove, an appropriate start, as it’s the first track off of Sublime’s self-titled album. There were no turntables, though, so it sounded decidedly different than the original. In addition, unlike Sublime’s Brad Nowell, the vocalist didn’t enunciate enough, making it unnecessarily difficult to understand the lyrics.

The singer continued this near-slurring of words throughout most of the songs, which just worsened the slow speed at which they were played. The short, quick Same in the End wasn’t played nearly as fast and enthusiastically as the original, completely losing the frenetic, fun sound it’s supposed to have.

Perhaps the worst offense was their version of the immensely popular Wrong Way. The original includes a trombone, but Badfish instead incorporated a mediocre alto saxophone. The trombone’s speedy and lively solo was completely lost, being replaced by a sub-par saxophone attempt.

Somehow Badfish has become a nationally known group, and the audience was certainly enjoying themselves, with plenty of people dancing and singing along (though by then, it could have simply been the influence of copious beer). But to this Sublime fan, they were truly nothing special. You’d be better off popping in one of their CDs with the volume turned up.

Project Runway

2006-09-14T02:11:00.001-04:00

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY BROUGHT BACK VINCENT AND ANGELA. Those two couldn't design their way out of a paper bag. And Vincent is clearly psychotic. Everything he makes "gets him off." Ew. Like I really want that image in my head. I don't like the fact that they brought anyone back, but they could have at least brought back Alison. Other than her awful paper dress, her designs were sublime.

In other news, Yom Kippur is coming up in a couple weeks, which means I get another three-day weekend. Which means I can try to go to NYC again to see Mike and Susan, and hopefully it will work out this time. Jetblue has plane tickets for that weekend that cost less than a Greyhound, so I really want to go. And I need to buy the tickets asap because the price goes up the closer you get to the date of travel, but I couldn't get in touch with either of them tonight. Why is it so difficult to reach these two?? I miss New York City! This was the first summer in four years that I didn't go there, and for the past two years, I've been getting myself down there at least twice a year. Well at least I'm guaranteed to be there in January for the arts journalism immersion course. And I'm hoping to additionally go there a few days earlier than the rest of the class to celebrate New Years Eve. I have never celebrated New Years-EVER-even though I want to pretty much every year. So this year had better be the exception, damnit!

hooray for free speech

2006-09-13T02:58:00.001-04:00

I just finished writing my first brief for Media Law on the Times v. Sullivan case. As much as I've been whining about this class and how boring it is, that actually wasn't so bad. And I SUPPOSE I like learning about first amendment stuff when you get right down to it. If I intend to be a journalist, then I should probably know the laws that directly affect me anyhow. Hopefully we will get to all the sex and obscenity stuff soon, though, because that should be extra fun. And lord knows I have lots to say regarding "obscenity." Like maybe the fact that it's completely subjective? A couple hundred years ago, showing your ankles was considered obscene. Now 13-year-olds walk around with their thongs hanging out the back of their pants and Abercrombie & Fitch ads are practically soft core porn. Granted, I don't particularly enjoy seeing either of those things, but why is that okay, while a naked breast is DOOM! Shield the littles ones' eyes! Not a breast! Not the thing they ATE FROM FOR A YEAR.

The FCC is full of crap and unconstitutional, if you ask me. It's called a v-chip, people. Or you could always, you know, TURN THE TV OFF!

Yeah...

Anyways! I also voted today. Go me. I love voting. I vote for any little thing I can- school board, comptroller, all that stuff where no one really knows what the position actually entails. It's good stuff.

interesting day

2006-09-07T02:03:00.001-04:00

Today I went to a talk given by George Cham, the creator of the webcomic, "Piled Higher and Deeper." He was a grad student earning his PhD (like 10 years ago) in some form of engineering, but ended up drawing this comic about how much grad school sucked and now making the comic, and doing talks and such, is his full-time job. So basically this guy spent years being miserable in grad school, only to end up with a "job" completely unrelated to his field of study. Wow, am I ever happy to be in a one-year masters program on a subject that I completely adore. Although I have to say, he was pretty damn funny. Plus he was kinda cute and there was free food afterwards.

When I walked home from the bus stop later, I was listening to the Talking Heads song, "Don't Worry About the Government," and I definitely danced the entire four blocks to my house. It was great. I seriously couldn't help myself. It's SUCH a good song. I think it's going to have to be my new favorite by them.

I made a very fattening quiche (mmm, creme fraiche) for dinner tonight after eating a couple of those mini-quiches at the George Cham thing. Then on Project Runway, the contestants were in Paris. It was a French-filled evening. I miss France so much. I can't even begin to explain how jealous I am that my parents are there right now and I'm not, especially since they're currently in Veules-les-Roses (it's in Normandy), which is my favorite place to be in the entire world. Even more than New York City. It is the most charming, most French town you could possibly see. There are houses with thatched roofs and cows everywhere. And the ocean is spectacular. The water is pretty cold (though I always go swimming anyways-how could you not??), but low tide is incredible. The beach at high tide is all big rocks, which are not so comfortable to lie or walk on, but at low tide sand stretches for hundreds of feet. The beach is also encapsulated by these incredible white chalk cliffs, so you can hike along the edge of the cliff in one direction and come back along the beach during low tide.

Oh and one more thing before I quit procrastinating and do some real work: When I was walking my dog this afternoon, a middle-aged couple passed by me, and the man had a big red and green parrot perched on his shoulder-like a pirate! It was like, "Well, there's my dose of surrealism for the day."

busy, busy, busy...

2006-08-27T01:19:00.001-04:00

I have somehow been keeping myself exceedingly busy during my two free weeks. Who would have thought? I volunteered at the art park's pottery fair last weekend, for one thing. Granted, all I did was cook hot dogs, but they were super tasty, especially since it was chilly and rainy most of the time. I bought a ceramic fish for my parents to put in the cabin and couldn't resist buying myself this really pretty vase. It's about eight inches high, more narrow at the base, and flairs out a bit at the top. It's a light teal color with vaguely Japanese-esque scribbly leaves on it. I'm very pleased with the purchase, I must say.

Then what did I do for the rest of this week? A lot of puttering around, I guess, and preparing for classes. I attempted to buy books online, but the used prices were no cheaper than the bookstore's used prices, so I opted for the store, since I would get them much sooner that way. Alas, the store did not have a single of my books. Some of them they apparently got in the day after I tried to buy, but the store didn't even have a section for Magazine classes, even though I know there are required books for the class. This was very confusing.

I went to Binghamton for the night Wednesday, and hung out there a bit on Thursday. I saw Johanna, Meghan, Coworker Dan, and Teht. I expected to feel all nostalgiac about Bingo since I just graduated, but instead I felt decidedly disconnected. After living in Binghamton for four years, I've developed a newfound respect for Syracuse (there is way more to do here, and there are actual jobs). So my return to Bingo really solidified my opinion that it's a horribly depressing city. There are so few oppurtunities there. Lockheed Martin is getting a bigger presence there as we speak, though, so assuming they don't outsource everything, hopefully it will help. Of course, it may also follow IBM's shitty example, and after helping the economy recover, just up and leave for cheaper labor, etc. elsewhere.

I watched the movie "Scotland, Pa." with Jon and Dave Thursday night. At first we tried to rent this random John Cusack movie, but it was so obscure that Blockbuster didn't actually carry it, which I find rather amusing. The DVD case was on the shelf by mistake. "Scotland" was an interpretation of "Macbeth" set in the 1970s. I have yet to read "Macbeth," but Dave claimed the movie was genius, so apparently it was pretty faithful to the original motifs and such. Then I made them watch the anime movie "Millenium Actress," which is one of my absolute favorite anime films. It's about an aging actress whose films paralleled parts of her life. So you get scenes of her life interspersed with scenes from her movies. Sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart, which I REALLY like. Plus it's by one of my favorite directors, Satoshi Kon. It's a really beautiful film.

Let's see... Yesterday I took my dog to the vet and on the way home he shit on the seat and then sat in it, so I spent the better part of the day cleaning it. Gross. In the evening Bec and I went to Dinosaur BBQ since this is her last week before leaving for grad school at Dartmouth. It was super delicious, as always. I wish they would quit trying to put Dinosaur in other cities, though. The one in Rochester is hardly the same. It's more like a family restaurant. It's supposed to be a dirty biker bar-type place. And Bec said the one in Harlem got bad reviews. Now, how many aging, fat bikers with long beards and ponytails in leather do you see riding around on their Harleys in Harlem? Not too many, I would wager. I just don't think it works.

Today I went to the first annual Clinton art and music festival (in Clinton, N.Y.). It was pretty good, actually. There were tons of bands of all different styles. I watched a sort of folksy rock band for a while that had an upright bass, drums, and a ukelele. Now there's something you don't see every day. Most of the art was pretty amateur other than the potters and this one painter. But even that one painter had really sweet, country style. Why is that the only painting style you ever see at things like this? Don't people have any different tastes? Oh well. I discovered the festival through Mike's band's (Sinister Yu) website, because they were among the bands playing. But then he wasn't even there with the rest of the band. Maybe he quit? At that point I'd been there by myself for almost three hours anyways, so I decided I was bored and came back home.

Tomorrow night there is an opening at the art park, but I don't know if I'm going to go. I want to, but I've been driving so much lately that I don't really feel like going anywhere for a while. Plus the Emmys are tomorrow and I want to see if "Arrested Development" will win again. I certainly hope so.

My parents left for France this morning, so I have the house to myself for the next two weeks. But since classes start Monday, I'm sure schoolwork will keep me pretty occupied and I won't feel lonely in the big house. Plus I have the dog.

Whew. That is enough writing for tonight.

oops

2006-08-19T16:09:00.001-04:00

When I was writing in here yesterday, I totally forgot to include the fact that I watched a performance of "The Taming of the Shrew" in Thornden Park last night with Bec. I hadn't read the play, and I have to say, I don't like it very much. I actually prefer the movie version "10 Things I Hate About You." Katarina's speech at the end pisses me off. She turns herself into her husband's slave after he spent the entire play practically raping her. Yeah. Okay.

So last night when I was trying to fall asleep, it occured to me how weird Thornden Park is. There is a huge public pool and there has been football practice for really little kids there for the past few weeks. Then there's a playground and you also get the ice cream truck driving through the park all day long. So it seems like a family-type place. There is also the amphitheatre, where they have Shakespeare being performed. And there is a gorgeous rose garden with little paths going through it. So it has a cultured edge to it as well, I guess. And then you have seriously frightening instances of crime, like the murdered body being found there last year. I would never walk through that park after dark.

So you end up with family-friendliness, culture, and crime all in one place. How does that kind of dynamic even happen? Syracuse is a weird place. It's like a bad neighborhood every few square blocks, and then every other OTHER few square blocks is upscale, relatively crime-free neighborhoods.

it's been a while...

2006-08-19T02:45:00.001-04:00

So I really need to update this thing more often. I'm supposed to be writing in an official "blog" because apparently you have to do that if you want to be a journalist these days. So jeez, what have I been doing lately? Last Friday was the last day of "boot camp" and we spent it going to Cooperstown to see the opera at Glimmerglass. We saw "Jenufa," which turned out to be so much better than I was anticipating. We watched this awful dvd of a performance prior to the real opera, and then I was told that the real opera was set in the old west. Turns out it was actually set in what appeared to be depression-era midwest. Plus the singer at the real opera was way better than the dvd girl. The actress in the dvd made this horrific expression throughout the entire thing-even when she was supposed to be happy. It was like she was being tortured or something.

Anyways, then Saturday I watched "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" with some AJ kids. The whole movie made no sense whatsoever. It was 60s psychedelic nonsense. With lots of unneccessary boobies. Though funnily enough, it was written by Roger Ebert.

For the rest of this past week I haven't been doing much of anything. Yesterday was my 22nd birthday, so my family went to dinner at Secret Garden and had yummy Vietnamese and Japanese food. That place has the best shrimp tempura ever.

Tomorrow I'm volunteering at my beloved art park during the pottery/ceramics fair, though all I'll be doing is making and serving hot dogs. But I figure I'll at least get a couple free hot dogs out of it and some fresh air.

i heart art

2006-08-09T02:20:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I went to the art park for something like the fifth time in the past two weeks. Jon and Raquel joined me at artist Al Zaruba's discussion. He showed slides of his work and some videos of his dancing in these massive costumes he makes that look like dumpy, mutated Big Birds. It was pretty impressive. A lot of the time when I listen to artists speak, their explanations seem kind of like bs. But Al seemed pretty genuine. Or maybe I'm just getting better at understanding art through this program. I'm going back to the park again tomorrow for music and then a mini film fest. The last film night I attended there was amazing. The films were all fantastic.

The most fun thing about yesterday's trip, though, wasn't actually the artist's talk. When we were leaving, Raquel, Jon and I noticed a cornfield on the side of the driveway. So I go "Do you want to pick some??" And we pulled over and actually tried to pick corn. Then not only was the corn not ripe yet, but there were mosquitoes everywhere. So we pretty much just waved our arms around for a while trying to avoid them and then got back in the car. It was pretty ridiculous.