The One-Room M.F.A. Program

If Edith's slip rant has gotten you cranky and nostalgic, Tom Hopkins, who wrote the bear-in-vagina story in last year's L Mag Summer Fiction Issue (this year's out in one week!), has a sem-new, just-shown-to-me thing up at Yankee Pot Roast: "The One-Room M.F.A. Program." I LOLed, you will too, assuming you're the kind of person who giggles uncontrollably at off-color Carson McCullers jokes delivered in a crusty Southern dialect. When this story's narrator was my age they didn't even have lawns to shoo kids off of.

Eco-Friendship: Milkfight

Today Slate answers the age old riddle of which milk/"milk" is better for the planet: soy vs. regular.

The answer may not surprise you. Or it may surprise you!

It is...



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Rant: Let Me SLIP Into Something Less Carelessly Made

I was going through the racks at one of my favorite vintage stores, Olives, yesterday evening. They had this beautifully tailored high-waisted white skirt made of some kind of satiny wool, with a front panel flanked with sculpted gold buttons, and a milky silk lining. I believe it was from the '50s or '60s, and I forget the brand, but it was gorgeous and they were selling it for $295 (and then at a 30% discount--the whole store's currently on sale, visit if you're in the area). That's a lot for a skirt, especially a vintage skirt. But the craftsmanship was flawless. It was like architecture. Everything about it was perfect--there was nothing you needed to go out and buy to accompany it. You'd buy it, wear it, take it off, hang it in your closet, dry clean it sometimes, wear it, REPEAT infinitely. Which reminded me how angry I get about how shittily some clothes are made today.

Decently fancy women's clothes today--items that cost more than $200, sometimes more than $400--are often made so sloppily, so shoddily, and yet no one's taking them to task. Dresses and skirts rarely come with liners or built-in slips anymore (or, less frequently), and often they're just a transparent sheet of gauze that somehow they've justified can cost hundreds of dollars. I mean, they're often gorgeous, and people keep buying them, but I don't get it. For hundreds of dollars, couldn't these designers try to make dresses that stand alone? So you don't have to go out and buy slips and tank tops and whatever for clothes that cost $395? Can't ten of those dollars go to attaching a mediocre liner?

But I guess they don't have to, because, again, people still buy them. But seriously. So flimsy! I could crush these clothes.

Why Isn't the Brooklyn Public Library Open on Sundays?

None of the branches of the Brooklyn Public Library, and almost none of the branches of the New York Public Library, are open on Sunday. This is some bullshit. There is of course first of all the same problem working adults have with places like banks and the post office — the weekends are when we have time to run errands, for the most part, or else evenings aren't exactly convenient — but mostly I'm thinking, as always, of the children.

Obviously I'm writing this as someone whose mother used to drop him off in the children's section of the Prince Memorial Library in Cumberland, Maine whenever she had errands to run and couldn't find anyone to watch him (thus sparking a lifelong affection for Tintin), but it strikes me that the library could be a really important community resource, if we'd only let it. Parents who are busy on Sundays, as many are, especially ones who work hard for not much money, need a place where their kids can be, and I don't see why your local public library couldn't be at least as helpful as a neighborhood church in providing (free of charge) childcare in a stimulating and positively reinforcing environment. These kids, whose parents are often not around, are the ones most in need of additional inducements towards a life of literacy; it seems like age-appropriate reading groups and supervised browsing would be right up there with the best thing a kid could possibly do on a Sunday, and I would imagine, or at least hope, that there would be no shortage of volunteers willing to give up a couple hours to make sure that kids aren't running around yelling and burning the place down, and are reading or getting read to. (Yes, I'm volunteering.) Write your city councilperson, I think.

Most Appealing/Repellent PR Pitch of the Day: "Save the Snow Leopard and Win [Vodka]"

If you need vodka, you can win two bottles of it by clicking here. And if you want to save the snow leopard, 15% of each bottle you buy (and don't win) goes toward snow leopard conservation funds. It's kind of this perfect harmony of silly luxury and charity. I'm picturing some ice palace filled with beautiful people in futuristic leotards.

Hey Do You Guys Like Wine? Sweet Summer Wine?

Here's a cheap, super quick recommendation. Quickommendation.

Cotes du Rhone Parallele 45, by Jaboulet. I picked it for its pretty label--clean colors, lovely fonts, classic style, etc--and it turned out delicious. It's a rose, dry, drinkable, stiff. $10.99 at my local wine store. I really recommend it for the rest of summer. Do people ever drink rose in the winter?

Chantal, do you have any rose?
I actually drank it all seven months ago.
That's hilarious. Quit it!
No.
All right.

Theater Review: What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends

Uh oh, The L's Mary Block saw a terrible play.

I spent most of What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends feeling embarrassed. The actors put so much energy behind the goofy dialogue, the awkward fourth wall breaks, and the pothole-riddled narrative superimposed on the play's pointless absurdity that I cringed when running gags fell flat over and over. I felt really embarrassed for the woman sitting next to me who fell asleep and started snoring. When the curtain fell I just bolted.

The play is an absurdist comedy with a moral lesson, which would be difficult to handle even without its additional attempts at cleverness and hazy allusions to fascism or something. Some urbanites form a secret society of friends to ensure loyalty, and use a system of points and ranking to keep each other "honest" that (not quite shockingly) tends to backfire. The dialogue comes across like bad improv comedy--the kind that keeps building even though it isn't funny and doesn't make sense. Because the lines and the situations are so ridiculous, the actors understandably tend toward caricatures that range from endearing to shrill.

As outsider Enid, Amy Staats is the most consistently funny and charming, plucking humor from the tortuous script. Todd D'Amour has an undeniable presence onstage and commits fully and admirably to oddball protagonist Matt's share of the affected dialogue. Josh Lefkowitz is saddled with most of the sinkers, playing multiple characters, although high-pitched and smiley Susan Louise O'Connor delivers a number as well. Carrie Keranen isn't all that unlikable as ringleader Celia, which makes backlash against her seem odd and unwarranted. Most of What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends seems odd and unwarranted.

What To Do When You Hate All Your Friends
Lion Theatre @ Theatre Row--410 W 42nd St
July 19th-August 23rd
$18

Give to Charity Via Drinks Mixed By Attractive Fake Bartenders

So there's this thing called Taco Tuesdays, where every Tuesday people from two posh organizations (usually a magazine and a fashion company) go head to head in a bartending competition. I think the rules are you buy a drink from whoever's best, or whoever's hottest, and whichever organization has the most money at the end is the winner. And the money they raise/you spend goes toward the charity of the organization's choice. So, alternately, you just drink for whichever charity you think is better. Which is some kind of drunken Sophie's Choice thing, I guess.

Last week it was Roberto Cavalli vs. Blackbook (Blackbook won by $50), and tonight it's Betsey Johnson vs. Saks Fifth Avenue (Betsey reps the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund, Saks goes to bat for Charitywater.org). They arrange for fancy DJs to play music, and the drinks are all cheap ($4 margaritas, $4 well drinks, and a mystery "Fun-nizle" that they'll explain once you get there). If you're hungry, yes there are tacos--$2 each (chicken, carne asada, and veggie). Tonight they've also got a bonus Kissing Booth selling kisses from "Betsey Johnson girls", so if you're a creep that's probably the place for you.

At Rewind in the LES, at 7pm.

Follow the jump for the future summer/fall lineup:

Why So Crabby?

Starting tomorrow, July 23, every Wednesday through the end of August, the homey-gourmet East Village restaurant Back Forty is throwing an all-you-can-crab Crab Crab. An all-you-can-eat Crab Boil. $35 gets you bottomless crabs (the Maryland Blue variety--cloaked in Old Bay), corn on the cob, spiced potatoes, slaw, dessert, mallets to crush them with, and a newspapered table to make your messes. Unlimited towels, and pitchers are $15.

More crabs, please.

Janice, have you tried the crabs?
Claire, I love these crabs!

Mirrors, Mirrors, on the Walls

The Science section of the Times is filled with gems today, particularly their article on mirrors. Here's the rundown:

-Mirrors make us work harder, cheat less, and be more helpful when we're in a room with one.

-Except when socially accepted stereotypes ("politicians are liars" "lawyers are crooks") pop up, and then in the presence of a mirror we're more likely to agree with them.

-They help resolve mysterious neurological disorders, like the phantom limb syndrome.

-They make us think we're prettier than we are (as in, when faced with an array of images, one of which is uglier than we are, one of which is untouched, and one of which has been enhanced, we think we're the enhanced, prettiest one--because of mirrors).

-Mirrors make us believe other, more boring things that also aren't true.

Tonight's Summerscreen: Desperately Seeking Susan

Summerscreen, the L's free outdoor film series at McCarren Park Pool, continues tonight, and you should come join a couple thousand of your closest friends. The gates open at 6pm, so you can lay out your blanket and enjoy the food and drink sold on-site by San Loco, Smoke Joint, Blue Marble Ice Cream and Brooklyn Brewery, and general commencing with your outdoor summer drinking; at 7pm there'll be a set from Brooklyn's The Mumbles; the film starts at dusk.

Oh, the movie. It's Desperately Seeking Susan. To quote from our program notes:

Apropos for a Philly native who came to New York City for film school and made a splash with her first feature (1982’s punky Smithereens) Susan Seidelman’s defining work is actually about Making It Here. By the time she played Susan, Madonna had fallen off the turnip truck into a shift at Dunkin’ Donuts, a couple modern dance gigs and the attentions of Seymour Stein; the St. Mark’s It Girl snapped by Amy Arbus in ‘83 (now the cover of On the Street, a collection of Arbus’s Village Voice photos documenting the scene) would top the charts the following year, and here, in ‘85, playing a leather-and-lace chanteuse so postpunk she communicates with hookups via alt-weekly classifieds, would lead a new girl through the looking glass and into a downtown wonderland with cameos from Ann Magnusson and Richard Hell and scenes shot at Love Saves the Day and Danceteria. And Rosanna Arquette’s suburban housewife would stick around to become something of a muse herself, swapping Susan’s day-glo for (NYC lifer) Martin Scorsese’s crack epedemic-era performance-art monologues After Hours and Life Lessons (from New York Stories). 

What I'm ____ing Now

Here's a feature that's been popping in and out lately where we share what we've been enjoying in our spare and/or professional time. Today it's what I'm reading now...

These aren't cutting-edge recommendations, but I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo, which basically defined the fiction thriller genre back in 1844, and as far as I know it's never been beat. 1,100 pages of murder, poison, jewels, passion, betrayal, suicide, and hashish. Took me about a month--never boring (except possibly the first 30 quick pages). $13.99 for days of entertainment.

Now I'm reading Deadwood, the National Book Award-winning novel by Pete Dexter that crushes the TV show it spawned. I gave that show a chance, like a 5-episode chance, and it fell flat. Mostly because of Timothy Olyphant's polished, affected strutting, his fake tan and his whitened teeth, his paper-thin tough-guy act, and the fact that he didn't swing his arms when he walked. Anyway, the book blows the TV show out of the water. The only bad part is that so far I can't get the TV characters' faces out of my mind when I read.

Both books are terrific, if you're in the market.

They Hate Us for Our Big Words: Dark Knight Reviews Breed NYC Backlash

No message board or comments section complaint about "critics" (because all of us are the same person, doing the same job in the same way) has yet, in the history of the internet, revealed a respect for or even basic understanding of the role of the film critic, but the L's Henry Stewart has notices a nefarious undercurrent to the backlash-to-the-backlash. Henry, explain.

Thanks to positive press in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and Time, as well as from bloggers, The Dark Knight at one point had a flawless 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  That is, until a few days before its opening, when a handful — a modest trickle, really — of negative and mixed reviews hit the web, coincidentally from publications with New York in their titles (and, oddly, critics named David): David Fear at Time Out New York, David Denby at the New Yorker and David Edelstein at New York.

Predictably, fanboys took umbrage and, in Time Out’s comments section, expressed their outrage at all three critics, though mostly Fear.  In a typical response, Youareastupidcuntface told Fear to “suck a dick.” (On Rotten Tomatoes, several fanboys left Denby death threats.)

But more surprising was the vitriol against New York City that the Davids inspired, especially at Time Out’s website but also on a few blogs and message boards across the web.  (Of course, ironically, the aforementioned magazines that published positive reviews are all based in New York, too.)  IGN has a running thread called: “FACT: New York ******* hates The Dark Knight.” 

“Out of 4 rotten reviews, 3 are from NY critics,” wrote AllDat, as though exposing a secret conspiracy.  “So true,” ZellJr cryptically responded, omitting the secret meaning of this fact that the posters seemed to tacitly understand.

The secret meaning, I suppose, is that no one expected anything else from those hoity-toity New York Critics.  Invite readers to comment on negative or mixed reviews of popular movies and you inevitably get people trotting out the same old insults about critics in general.  Make your own movie, then, why don’t you.  Write a non-biased review, jerk.  Get a girlfriend. 

 “MAYBE [YOU WRITE BAD REVIEWS] BECAUSE YOU CAUGHT YOUR WIFE DOING SOMEONE FROM HARLEM DIE DOUCHEBAG,” posits a user named Dark Knight at Time Out.  (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that one.)  But many commentors, like that one (sort of), are shaping the backlash against the negative reviews for Dark Knight as a larger issue, not just with movie critics but with New York critics.  And not just New York critics, then, but with the city itself.





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So Many Baby Animals to Pet, So Many Nya naadfjfeifjdfkaj

 Aaah, baby donkey!

Probably, Especially If Your Kid Is Like, "Ow, It's Too Hot"

From the NYTimes City Room:

Neat: Just Throw This Cup Right On the Ground

Did you guys know they can make plastic cups out of corn? They're not actually plastic, they're corn somehow, but they look and feel just like everyone's favorite plastic cups. (My favorites are the 20 ounce plastic cups. Not too big, not too small, never too heavy or startling. Great hand feel.) But the difference between real plastic cups and these biodegradable corn cups is that the corn ones can melt back into the earth in 45-60 days, depending on the level of friendly composting.

I found them last night at Margaret Palca Bakes, where they contained my frozen coffee. If you own a store, or have a lot of parties, or have reckless children, I recommend buying them. A case (1,000 cups of 20-oz size) costs $139. (Versus regular plastic cups, which cost in the same ballpark, like these Solo cups that cost $135.) They also make a bunch more products, if you're in the market for disposable bowls and/or sushi trays. And much more.

Anyway, the point is I'm starting a store called Edith's Store. Details TBD.

Waterfalls: How Bout Those Waterfalls?

I've had a few heated driving-down-the-BQE and/or West Side Highway conversations about Olafur Eliasson's Waterfalls. You know, those giant fake waterfalls installed in the rivers around NYC, pumping windy white water out of giant scaffolding.

No one likes them. At least none of the people I ride in cars with. The main complaints are that they're too small, they're too thin, they're too wasteful, they're too boring, "I don't like the number four," or they're too "generally dumb." I think they're cool, but not in the way that they might have been, or in the mystical, magical way this picture and others suggested they would be. Instead, I think it's cool that they're sparking people to fight or talk calmly about how much the Waterfalls do or don't suck. Kind of like the Gates. I like the idea that people are talking about art, figuring it out as they talk it over. One obvious drawback, though, is that the Waterfalls are generally understood to be coolest at dusk, which is also about 15 minutes before they're turned off.

Part of this stems from when I used to work for this guy called Sidewalk Sam, who does gorgeous chalk paintings on the sidewalks, mostly in and around Boston. His idea is that it's important to get art out of museums and into the regular world so everyone can appreciate it, and so it beautifies the regular world, regardless of how impermanent it is. And I think this is true.

Street Stories NYC: "After the peace and love I found yoga"

Welcome to Street Stories NYC--our weekly column in which contributor Jessica Hall interviews the street and homeless people she meets in the city. This week she spoke with Robert Rushin, 59, whom she met in Union Square.

Where are you from?

I’m from New York City, I left in ’65 for LA with my mother and sister because my father was abusive and a tyrant, so we went to live with my grandmother, who was another tyrant. Her name was Big Red, she was one of the first black women in the Air Force, and she helped break the Navajo code.

My mother was one of the few blacks in the University of Minnesota in the 40s. She studied nursing, and when she got tired of it she decided to follow her sister to New York ‘cause she thought it was more fun and there was more going on in a big city.

I’m a musician and street performer. I play electronic keyboard, electronic sax--that’s a digital horn. Mostly I play recorders. You know, the flutes, in the subway here at Union Square. I play in Brooklyn a lot, sometimes in Queens. It’s a lot of effort. I used to work 16 hours a day, going back and forth to different spots and sleep on the subway between appearances. In the subway you get a better rapport with the crowds. It’s a lot of effort to play good enough for people to listen to you. I only do it on occasion now, a couple days a week.

How long have you been homeless?

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Summer Restaurant Week: July 21-25, July 28-Aug 1

Restaurant Week starts today and lasts for a weird, bifurcated chunk of time. $35 buys you a prix fixe dinner at dozens of otherwise prohibitively expensive restaurants, like Oceana, Le Cirque, Morimoto, and Michael Jordan's The Steak House NYC. Et cetera. And $24.07 buys you lunch.

Make a reservation now, or yesterday. Please take me along.

A Movie, Reviewed

Jesse Hassenger saw a movie that opened last week. No points for guessing which.

Notes on seeing The Dark Knight at a midnight screening in Times Square:

--This movie is awesome, go see it if you haven’t.  Not that it needs your money, but I've got your needs in mind here.

--We got to the theater at 10:45.  The line for the AMC Empire (42nd and 8th) was already around the block, down 8th, and halfway down 41st Street -- and in the street, because one sidewalk was under construction and the other was getting soaked under the New York Times building's power-washing. Eventually, some cops moved us where buses would not be crawling a few inches from our faces (true story).

--Yes, cops regulated a movie line, and it was kinda awesome.  The people-hating fascist in me was delighted and kinda wanted to ask them to patrol the actual theater for talkers 'n texters (like the one sitting two seats away from me).

--Now, the actual movie.  No big spoilers, but if you want to come in completely clean, get thee away from the jump.


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Recommended!

It's time again for Recommended, the Monday feature in which I recommend the best things I did last weekend. It's easy, there's only two:

The Catskills. In particular, Kate's Lazy Meadow Motel. It's a gorgeous hilly stretch of green fields, trees, and kitchily decorated cabins and repurposed Airstream trailers, overlooking the Esopus Creek, nestled among the mountains. Within the first three minutes of getting there I saw a deer and a bunch of tiny cottontail bunnies, just hopping around. It was like a living fairytale, with a natural saltwater hot tub. Strongly recommended!

The Dark Knight. It was so good that I figured it was one of the best movies of all time, so I looked up the Rotten Tomatoes verdict (94), which led me to wonder what the top film of all time was, and the winner is Toy Story II. The more you know. The movie is recommended.

Unrecommended:

I've been fighting this for a while now, but the United Artists Cinema on Court Street in Brooklyn Heights/Cobble Hill is a nightmare. In the past it's been fun--rowdy, energetic--but last night for The Dark Knight it was a fucking circus of idiocy.
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Sex Advice From a Goose: Do As I Say and Do Me

Welcome to our weekly feature in which I, Gary, The L's wooden goose, shall answer the questions asked of Audrey Ference, The Natural Redhead, in the current issue of the L.

Dear Audrey Gary,
My husband and I were high school sweethearts who practiced abstinence until we got married, which is something I highly recommend to any woman out there. But I never understood the “wow factor” until after a few shots and a triple dare at my best friend’s bachelorette party.  I woke up with a complete stranger and had learned the meaning of WOW.  Since then I have had a few other liaisons and have come to realize that some men really know how to pleasure a woman in bed. I want my husband to be one of them. When and where do men learn this? Are there any classes out there you can recommend? 

You ask where and when men learn to pleasure a woman in bed. I can't speak for anyone else, but I learned to pleasure a woman in bed on August 19th, 1997, at about 4:30pm, underneath the dock of the Staten Island Ferry.

What happened was, my friend Donnie and I had been flying around all day, circling, letting the tourists take our pictures, and sneaking in to slurp up spilled beer wherever we could. At about three o'clock, already with a pretty good buzz on, we found a sandwich that somebody had dropped, it'd been soaking in a puddle of Foster's for a while. We were pretty young then, and also we are geese, so we were fucking hammered by the time we got back to Donnie's. We were sort of lolling around on the water, and Donnie's older sister Serene was around, she was home from college, and she was just shaking her beak at us, and beating her wings really loud whenever we floated too close to the boat.  (More...)