Banksy in Chelsea

We're a few days into Banksy's New York residency.  I haven't been too engaged in the Painter Chase, but this piece is so close to Chome that I hunted it down.

Worth a look.  As all the press mentions, his pieces tend not to last too long before other taggers get to it.  If you review those press and online items, you'll notice that many of the images are different from each other in content as well as perspective: more or less in the way of images and verbiage, depending on when the taggers and photographers got to the spot.  You can see in the shot above that someone (who? a sympatico fellow tagger? one of the nearby gallerists?  Banksy himself?) has recently gone over "THIS IS MY NEW YORK ACCENT" to reinforce it, so that it is complete on the surface, above the other tags, at least for a little while on Friday morning.

And then there's the (slightly) greater context.  Again, this surface - like most un- or semi-sanctioned street art canvases - is continually evolving.  Some 'vandalizing' Banksy's attention-getting 'vandalism'; a Bronx record label making use of the attention; someone calling on (challenging?) Banksy to make use of his newly declared accent to use the megaphone of the attention to, you know, come out and say something; another stencil down left wondering out loud if the emperor's wardrobe is really all that impressive.  This could go on for a while.

What do you think?  Important urban art?  Commentary on the Gallery District/the Great New York Art Scene (now polished and sanitized for your protection and convenience!)?  A damn squit?

Look closer.  And keep looking - we should be getting more of these all month all over the city.

Les Miserahahahahahaaaaaa!!!

Spoiler Alert(?) You may not want to watch this if you haven't seen the Les Miserable movie yet.  But if you have seen it (or don't care about it), For Your Consideration...


Put the "?" there because - even if you haven't seen the film, you've probably seen at least part of the scene the (holy crapballs amazing!!) Emma Fitzpatrick is satirizing, because it's been clipped on every awards show and every talk show and late-night comedy appearance Anne Hathaway has made.

Now let me be Obama clear here: I love Anne Hathatway.  I LO-UH-UH-UH-LOVE Anne Hathaway and want to see everything she does.  She should probably win some sort of award just for how she handled Matt Lauer, and is a brilliant actress on stage and on screen.  And I will shed no tear if she wins an award on Oscar night.

But I also have no beef with those who claim Les Miz iz lame.  And this viddy is effin funny.

Jon, Jon, Jon...

Ok, I've held back. The last few weeks have given us all such fodder for some rage against the political/media machines, and I've been restraining myself for the sake of good Spring vibes.


But now I'm going to cut loose just a little bit and unleash on one of my fave commentators. (side note: why 'commentator'? why not just 'commenter'?) Mr. Jon Stewart, who has consistently been there to skewer the Stupid - left, right and center - let a big ol' grapefruit of a ball drop last night.



He had Newt Gingrich as a guest on The Daily Show. Yes, that Newt Gingrich: former Speaker of the House, Clinton Nemesis, author of the Contract On America (What? it's Contract With America? C'mon, when you hire a hit man to grease some guy, you don't call it a contract with said guy, you call it a contract ON him), architect of the Neocon Revolution. And I'm thinking: "Yes! Now, in light of all the things that have been happening lately - the economy, the war, the food crisis, the back room approval of torture - you can get in some really good jabs, maybe even land a knockdown or two." And he set it up pretty well, showing a clip of Justice Antonin Scalia insisting, with a straight face, that 'torture' isn't 'punishment' (as, get this, part of his "charm offensive." I have lived too long.)

And what do they talk about? Obama's former minister.



WHAT?!?!??!?!



I know, I know - these things are vetted and scripted, or at least outlined. But this was the best outline you could get Gingrich to agree to as he's hawking his new co-authored novel about WWII? Really??

It's not that I don't have my problems with Reverend Wright, who seems extra special self-serving these days. It's not that I don't think it's fair for a Republican to kick the Democrats while they scuffle and scorn. It's not that I don't already have a HUGE issue with this sense among progressives that watching satire on TV is some kind of substitute for real activism. But Jon, if you're gonna hold a satire party and invite a pig, don't forget the meat fork.

The thing that may be bothering me most is that a lot of people would consider me a wing nut for thinking that the fact (fact, people, there's evidence, and they all admitted it) that the Vice President, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor and a room full of others, with the President's knowledge, got together and mapped out/approved of processes of torture - I'm sorry, "extreme methods" - that would be conducted by American Soldiers might be, oh, I don't know, MORE IMPORTANT than Bittergate, and who does what shots in what bars, and who eats what kind of cheesesteaks.

Yet there it is, all over the "liberal media": proof, time and again, that accountability, analysis and critical thinking are not part of the game.

Work with me folks. I think it's time to rewrite the rule book.

Music Update, etc.

News on some music happening in my near future:

• Patti Smith opening for Black Crowes on Halloween at The United Palace in the Heights courtesy Jason - mad props
• Yo La Tengo not once but twice over Chanukkah - at Maxwell's - which spells awesome happy fun time rockin', with the added bonus that I can stumble home, if necessary

And so this is not totally a music blog, which is not what I set out to create, let me say:

- Bon Voyage a Carissa - have a great time in Chi Town and keep us all posted.

- Saw Eastern Promises last evening. Not bad! (though not great) Cronenberg gets in his 'eeew' factor while telling a good story. Many of the 'twists' tend to be visible well in advance, but the acting goes a long way to make up for that. Gotta love you some Viggo Mortensen. Armin Mueller Stahl = effectively creepy. And Naomi Watts? Yum.

- Stephen Colbert is running for president. Discuss. BTW - he's doing a book signing at Arms-r-Global tonight.

- Game One tonight, folks. Goooooood mojo to Boston.

Simpsons Movie Madness!

Ok, so yesterday was kind of bipolar. One of those "just bust throught the workday shit and cut through the humidity so you can get to the good stuff" situations. Have to say, however, i had a few good things happen at work, including having some cheap movie passes delivered (a perq of the job), a very yummy sandwich for lunch, a truly energizing IM chat, and some good gear from a sample sale (another perq!) - see on paper it doesn't look bad; just trust me, there was some silly nonsense that got thrown in the blender with the 90% humidity to make some hot and sticky cream-of-malaise soup.

It was all leading up to the midnight premier of The Simpsons Movie, so on my way from work, i walked by the theater where we'd be seeing the film to pick up the tickets. No dice - big jennifer lopez event happening which drew an impenetrable crowd. Got to Riposo for happy hour & appies, and as sherin & i settled in it was like a mist of pino bianco on a cool breeze cleansed the whole evening. The prosciutto-wrapped grilled asparagus and mushroom-and-goat cheese flatbread didn't hurt, either.

We attempted and failed to do errands in an over-crowded Times Square (well, that time of day, is there any other kind of Times Square?) but got ice cream and coffee on the way, so all was still swimming nicely. Saw Grey Gardens, which, well, if you haven't seen it and you can score tickets for this weekend you should, 'cause it's damn good and it closes on Sunday and i don't think Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson are apt to do it again.

Then it was back to 42nd Street for the movie, the attendant crowd and excitement. So much fun! All those wacky maniacs silly enough to hit a midnight movie on a school night for the sake of the best satirical expression of our time. I mean the movie itself was good, and funny, if perhaps not quite as loaded up with guest stars and plot points as i thought it would be, but it built to a great peak, with typical Homeric conflicts leading to a massive environmental collapse by way of hilarious gags; and as they established a Mr. Burns-fueled energy crisis and the family made its break for their cinematic promised land... the theater went black.

I thought: "Genius! Leave it to The Simpsons to orchestrate a moment of true, whole art gesamtkunstwerk into a simple piece of PG-13! A momentary flash of brilliant darkness reflecting the nuclear power issue and the other environmental concerns established in this simple cartoon!"

Um... no. That would be me giving them waaaaaaaaay too much credit. It was just a regular old-fashioned blackout, and they couldn't fix it, and we didn't get to see the rest of the movie.

D'oh!

I mean, they gave us vouchers to see it again whenever we want, and whatever suspense there was about getting home at 3 or 4 in the morning was resolved. Just, like i said, the day was a little bipolar.



Oh - and here's the Simpsons character i put together for myself :) You can do the same thing if you click on the movie link i put up top. Send me a copy so i can see your creation!