Category Archives: Books

the Meatpacking District: a history

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Gawker‘s current muse is the Meatpacking District, and in an attempt to exorcise the demons that have driven them to this absurd and unholy fascination, they’ve posted three times today on the topic, perhaps hoping to exhaust this obsession before it becomes embarassing.

Too late.

But this one is funny at least:

Approx. 4500 B.C.: Lenape tribe settle in New York area, shun Meatpacking District as “too canoe & kayak.”

1524: Florentine navigator Giovvani da Verrazzano becomes first person of Italian descent to visit area; gets handjob from drunken local after claiming to be “a large personne in the Spice trades…”

1626: New Netherland Director General Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan from local tribes for $24 plus promise to buy at least two bottles of Cristal in V.I.P. lounge.

1664: Director General Peter Stuyvesant surrenders New Amsterdam to the English; King Charles II declares territory “an area forewith to which we will send our most wretched, unpleasant personages”; early progenitors of various Sykes siblings sit up and take notice…

1985: Florent opens. Although even the neighborhood’s fiercest detractors acknowledge innovation and daring implicit in the opening of a bistro in the MPD at this point in time, it can only be viewed as the root of the poisonous tree from whence springs all evil…

2000: Samantha Jones moves from UES to MPD. Thousands of young women who are so unimaginative that they base their own lives on an HBO program written by a gay man and some dude who will eventually become the world’s most annoying advice columnist decide that the area is the next big thing.

Lotus opens. Had al-Qaeda bombed this place during certain evenings of its first year they would today be considered national heroes, feted at awards dinners and their features put on stamps and currency…

Cat’s Head Theatre presents: Hamlet

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Man, those costumes look uncomfortable. These are some patient cats. Act II, scene 2, with bonus “Monarch” metaphor action.

Kaavya 2.0?

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There she is, Miss HarvardSeriously, what’s the ETA of the scandalous revelations on this one?

According to the Observer there’s an 11-year-old girl in China called Nancy Yi Fan who’s gotten herself published by one of the big guns. The story goes that she just up and emailed her manuscript to Jane Friedman, the CEO of HarperCollins, and Friedman (that incredible talent scout and kind, tweedy publisher at heart as well as hardened businesswoman) was so bowled over by the sheer literary merits of the ms that she could not rest until she had somehow and against all odds managed to persuade her peons to pick it up.

Astonishing. *wipes tear from eye*

A fantasy novel about tribes of warring birds, written by a gifted 11-year-old girl who lives in the southern-most province of China, is to be published worldwide in English.

The young author, Nancy Yi Fan, won the extraordinary opportunity by simply emailing her manuscript to the chief executive of HarperCollins, Jane Friedman, at the publisher’s New York office.

Fan has since been hailed as a prodigy by her editors who will use her book in a new attempt to establish the firm in China . Her story, Swordbird, is an epic allegory about the struggle for peace and will be printed in this country in the new year. Those who have seen it talk about it as the product of a mind as imaginative as some of the greatest names in children’s writing.

Fan wrote the novel in response to learning of the war on terror, and it is described as ‘an action-packed tale of birds at war’, set in the once-peaceful Stone-Run Forest. It tells how local woodbird tribes, the Cardinals and the Blue Jays, find themselves pitted against each other in a search for precious food supplies – some of which have mysteriously gone missing. Fighting breaks out and an evil hawk, Turnatt, turns the tribes against each other as part of a plan to take over the forest. He enslaves captives from surrounding tribes and is forced to build an impregnable fortress in which to confine all the woodbirds.

Born in Beijing in 1993, Fan lived in New York with her parents from the age of seven, graduating ‘with excellence’ from an elementary school there in 2004. When she was in sixth grade, at the age of 11, she was taught about terrorism and the events of 9/11. That night, she explains, she had a startling dream all about birds at war and the next day she started writing Swordbird in her bedroom as a way of trying to convey her worries about violence in the world. She now lives back in China, on the beautiful Hainan Island with her parents and their three pet birds. The girl, now 13, is a compulsive writer and reader who spends most of her time in the library, but she also loves bird-watching and martial arts.

The hero of Swordbird is an escaped ‘slavebird’, Miltin, who leads the woodbirds once they learn of Turnatt‘s strategy. The title refers to a legendarily heroic bird of peace. The Swordbird is the only one who can save the forest, so young birds Aska and Miltin fly off on a dangerous mission to find the Leasone gem. This stone, paired with an ancient song from the ‘Old Scripture’, will conjure Swordbird‘s help. The story has been chosen to launch the publishing house’s new push into China.

Quel suprise. New push into China? Why, what an amazing coincidence. As is the fact that the names in the book aren’t Chinese, nor even easy for Chinese to pronounce, nor are cardinals and blue jays native to China (nor Manhatten, come to that; they need woods). Nor does anyone graduate from an American elementary school, with excellence or Did JT write it? Not if it doesn't have hookers and raccoon penis boneswithout, in four years. Seriously, people, is there a seedy, unheated warehouse in Fulan or Maine stuffed with Old Oxbridgers, furiously churning out what the People’s Republic hopes will be the next Harry Potter?

coolest movie trailer ever: 300

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Stumbled across this on Daily Kos, a site that I go to maybe once a year; at least I picked the right day to go. Check out this incredible trailer from the new film based on the Frank Miller graphic novel. Rimjob, the blogger who did this writeup, knows his military history as well as his Star Trek; the Spartan/Klingon parallels were in Gene Roddenberry‘s mind when he was writing the original, and have only grown stronger since then.

No points for guessing who the Romulans were based on.

I must say, there’s just something amusing about writing “That Rimjob really knows his Spartans.” And vice versa, no doubt. By all means, go read the whole entry.

I’ve always been fascinated by historic last stands against insurmountable odds. The defense of Wake Island in World War II is an amazing history to read about. I’ve always seen events like this as living proof that a small band of people can, by force of will & a little luck, stand up to anyone or anything.

The trailer for the film version of Frank Miller‘s “300” has just been released. The movie & graphic novel deal with the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, where a few thousand greeks (led by King Leonidas & his 300 Spartans) fought an army of invading Persians that numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The trailer looks good, although they have the Spartan King Leonidas talking about “a new age of freedom”. Spartan society is probably the closest Humans have come to being like Klingons…

Well, he’s put his finger on it there. Persians are what they were called before they were called Iranians, and there’s no question the marketing people will be peeing themselves in spasmodic glee at how well the current international situation reflects the slant in this film.

Perhaps you’ll recall Michael Medved‘s attempt to claim that the Lord of the Rings films were about the terrorist threat against America, and perhaps you will recall as well the new asshole that Viggo Mortensen (cum laude B.A. in Government, St.Lawrence University) ripped him for that. Tolkien himself nearly rose from the grave at that apostasy.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how the Iranians/Persians are demonized, how the Spartans are Americanized (dare I cross my fingers for NOT?), and how the images are used as cheap emotional triggers by all the many squirming sides to this debate.

Until the users start using, we can simply enjoy the trailer itself. One last thing. I note with admiration that it contains the single most definitive ingredient to an awesome YouTube: a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails.

Rock on.

Elmo scandal grows: A Two – Two, ah! ah! ah! – Two-Faced Snake

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From Scott Feschuk‘s book Searching for Michael Jackson’s Nose.

Does it say too much about me to mention that I spent 45 minutes searching for this on the internet before realizing the possibility that I’d come across it somewhere else? Like in a … what’s the word? Book, right? After all, I used to read stuff that existed in the physical as well as ethereal world. But that was many years ago…

Elmo needs an intervention

A Two – Two, Ah! Ah! Ah! – Two-Faced Snake

PRODUCER: Hey. Excuse me, you, with the feathers. Listen, we’re from A&E. We’re here to shoot some footage for a Biography special on Elmo. You know him?

BIG BIRD (sipping a latte): Sure, I know Elmo. Everyone on Sesame Street knows Elmo.

PRODUCER: Great. That’s great. Let us just get the camera set up here and we’ll ask you a few questions. Stories, anecdotes, fond memories – whatever you can come up with.

BIG BIRD: Oh, you don’t want to talk to me. Elmo and I used to be good pals, but he doesn’t hang out on the street much any more. I hardly ever see him these days.

PRODUCER: So talk about old times, when Elmo was first getting to be famous. [to camera operator] You ready? Okay, shoot.

BIG BIRD: All right. Well, that was when it all started to change, really. Elmo had always been a sweet little guy, even when he was starting to make it big. But then one year Bob McGrath took him to the Grammys, and Elmo was never the same.

PRODUCER: Got a bit of a big head, did he?

BIG BIRD: Well, not exactly. I think what happened is that at one of those after-parties, Bob introduced Elmo to P.Diddy, and they just hit it off. Dancing, laughing, partying. One minute Elmo‘s learning his alphabet and practicing his phonics, the next he’s chugging Cristal and calling Maria “bee-yatch.”

PRODUCER: Cut. That’s great, Bird, great. But we’re working more from the Elmo-is-adored-by-children-around-the-world angle.

BIG BIRD: Oh sure, he’s all tee-hee for the cameras. But yell “Cut!” these days and the kid’s got a voice like Harvey Fierstein and a temper like Sean Penn.

PRODUCER: Right. [Sees someone else is coming]Okay, thanks, Bird. Hey! Hey, blue guy. Over here. How about you? What do you make of Elmo‘s remarkable success?

COOKIE MONSTER: Me no want to talk about him.

PRODUCER: Come on, our viewers would appreciate it.

COOKIE MONSTER: Me say this. Me used to get all best cookies, real gourmet product. Now, budget all go to Elmo. Big trailer, masseuse, guest directors for his segments. Quentin Tarantino take forty-seven days to shoot balls-falling-out-of-closet gag. An then they make me do sketch with frickin’ Dutch windmill cookies. Dutch windmill cookies. [Pause] Dutch. Windmill. Cookies.

PRODUCER: Er, right… You two! Stop! What about you two fellows? What can you tell us about Elmo?

ERNIE: Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but he’s a good kid.

PRODUCER: Finally! Get the camera over here!

ERNIE: A lot of folks on Sesame Street are jealous, though. I mean, a guy like Grover has been paying his dues for decades – never bellyaching, not even when they stuffed him into a white disco suit for the cover of the Sesame Street Fever album – and he gets jack-all in the way of respect around here. But Elmo giggles and moults fof fifteen minutes every day and he’s got Emmys out the wazoo. It gets a little hard to take. Just yesterday, he shows up late for our rhyming-game segment. Eyes as red as his fur. And I’m not even going to tell you how he replied when I started the sketch by saying, “Pucker.”

BERT (nudging his way in): You know at the end of the show, there’s that bit where they say, “Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter F and the number five,” or something like that. Well, Elmo has a hissy fit one day – storms off the set! – when the producers won’t agree to change it to “Sesame Street is brought to you by Big Ol’ Hank’s Burger Hut and Tequila Bar.” They always comp Elmo down at Big Ol’ Hank’s. The rest of us can’t even run a friggin’ tab.

PRODUCER: CUt. [Sighs] Burn that tape.

ERNIE: I heard that’s why they gave him his own show a few years back – to keep him from bolting. Fox was after him to play the lead in a bawdy new sitcom opposite Tori Spelling and one of the California Raisins.

PRODUCER: Wel, um… thanks. Cripes. [Dejectedly] How about you, sir? Do you have a minute to tell our viewers what you think of Elmo?

COUNT VON COUNT: Yes, I have precisely one – one, ah! ah! ah! – one minute to spare. So let me tell you a story, Mr. Producer Man. I run a little sideline business on Sesame Street: a public service involving financial repercussions resulting from the outcomes of certain events of a sporting nature, if you catch my drift. [The producer stares ahead vacantly]  I’m a friggin’ bookie. Anyway, Elmo gets on the show, starts earning a little green. Next thing I know he’s knocking on my castle door. Kid got lucky at first, real lucky: he always bet that the baker guy with the cakes would wind up falling down those stairs. Clumsy oaf cost me a fortune! But then Elmo started wagering on hopscotch, on rock-paper-scissors – he was out of control, and his luck turned bad. Soon, the kid’s into me for five – five, ah! ah! ah! – for five large. But every time I go to collect, I get a face-full of fat furry enforcer, telling me to scram. You ask me, the kid’s a two – two, ah! ah! ah! – two-faced snake.

There is a pause.

PRODUCER: Screw this. Let’s hit the road. I say we try soemthing a little easier this afternoon, like getting Mia Farrow to say some nice things for the Woody Allen bio.

As the producer and his crew depart, they walk past the Sesame Street Four Seasons, where Elmo is in the hot tub shooting a segment for his show, Elmo’s World.

ELMO (wearing sunglasses and nursing a highball while bikinied Muppets peel grapes for him): Hi, kids! Elmo loves you! Today we’re going to learn all about “groupies.”