2013 birthday, kith/kin, J, balleen: WOW, balleen at the J and phenomenal egg scramble, creamy grits, and unique biscuit at the The Flying Biscuit Cafe … but best of all was day with Allison. I feel celebrated!
Paris, Politics & Prose Bookstore, Donna Morris, Best Friend in Paris: Donna Morris was wonderful as a private guide. i cannot imagine a more fun “tour.”
“Donna showed us (shared really) the real Paris; the streets, shops and restaurants that make this city so special. And, it was all in great fun with shared wit and a sense of adventure at each corner.”
Carolinas HealthCare System, LOL: Never very often does a hospital system’s post bring a smile to my face and good laugh. 🙂
We had some “super” help today at Levine Children’s Hospital. Thank you to the window washing crew who dressed up as some of our favorite superheros and put some smiles on the kids faces!
NYC, The Waldorf Astoria, Starbucks, Starbucks Reusable Cups, Starbucks name: As I mentioned yesterday, I was very pleased with the Waldorf this visit. The hotel as renovated is a huge improvement over the state of the hotel two years ago. A few things I will note: Salvatore Feragamo bath products are not worth taking for the homeless. The company is known for leather shoes! The rooms are large, but the decor still makes you feel as though you walked back in time, which I personally like. And look at that thick solid wood door. Makes me feel safe!
After checking out, I met my friend Kim, the Davidson Wasabi Founder, and we started off at Starbucks where I used my $1 reusable cup which saves me 10 cents. Of course, I used my Starbucks name “Molly.” 🙂
“I am not looking to make friends when I go into a coffee shop, I just want a drink,” he complains.
Some drinkers are determined to withhold their identities from baristas
“I want a pleasant but respectful distance between me and the person serving me coffee – I don’t want to go clubbing with them.”
Certainly, initial reactions on Twitter were polarised.
While some were enthusiastic about Starbucks’ offer of free coffee to promote the policy change, others were determined to humorously subvert what they saw as a breach of the implicit barista-customer relationship.
The latter is a sentiment that Chris Hackley, professor of marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London, believes many customers will share – particularly those who visit Starbucks’ cafes in order to work, or to find a bit of solitary peace and quiet.
“Some people might like being called by their first name, but I think many will be indifferent, and some might feel awkward – like it’s over-familiar, or a bit of an intrusion into privacy,” he says.
Of course, for years smaller cafe chains and independent outlets have known that striking up conversations over a cuppa is a good way to do business.
Do these beans have your name on them?
But Hackley thinks Starbucks – at least when it is not someone’s regular haunt – could also come under fire for appearing fake.
“Companies can overplay the importance of one-to-one communication. When people are not seeking it – like when they are gathering information on the internet or quickly purchasing a coffee – it can be quite irritating.
“It’s a bogus personalisation of an economic relationship. Friendship needs to be genuine,” he says.
NYC, Big Onion, Davidson Wasabies, 100th anniversary of Grand Central, Grand Central by Billy Collins, Times Square, Chelsea/Meatpacking District, FIG & OLIVE Restaurant – Kitchen Tasting Bar, Fig and Olive, Arhaus Furniture, High Line Park, Thomas Houseago – Lying Figure (2011), El Anatsui, Ithinkoutsidemybox, “Unconditional Surrender”, Soho, Harney & Sons, Pomegranate Oolong, LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Delta Club, US Airways Club:
On to bigger and better things … We take the 6 train from 51st street to Grand Central (1 stop), then something to Times Square (not via the S/Shuttle, which would have been quicker), where I get my station pictures of the revelers and the movie poster for Hansel and Gretel …
So Kim and I arrived in Chelsea/Meatpacking District and toured around for a few minutes … I pointed out some spots CW had pointed out to me the day before …. (And CW, I went back in the Wonderland Salon and bought the heart earrings for Molly as well as the guidebook on the High Line Park).
And then we spotted an Arhaus. Kim is looking for furniture, so we ventured in … Big Sale … I am glad I do not live near an Arhaus …
At heart, we’re adventurers, motivated by unfailing passion and curiosity. Our furniture exemplifies the history and romance of our distinctive worldview. The curve of a leather sofa. The beautifully imperfect, salvaged wood of a rustic dining room table. All works of functional art. And at Arhaus, it’s never just about how a thing looks. It’s about the memories that are summoned—both past and present. Settle in; take a look around. Let our stories become yours.
Now back on to to the High Line. Kim and I had several hours, so we walked all 20 blocks and back. It was fun to walk it two days in a row, because I noticed some more things and saw some things differently …
The first was this sculpture by Thomas Houseago, Lying Figure (2011). Yesterday I thought the raised parts were his knees and now I realize they are his shoulders without a head.
What are the berries? They look like blueberries, but the birds would have eaten them … and besides, its the end of January.
Next we walked along and took note of the wooden chaises (we had been looking at chaises in Arhaus). Kim noticed that the single chaises were on rail wheels!
Yesterday, i focused more on the billboards, but isn’t this amphitheater cool?
Kim knows a lot about plants and gardening. The red berries definitely catch your attention. Neither of us knew what the succulent looking plant was, but everything planted here is supposed to be native to the area. And I never knew cedars had berries.
Then we quickly focused on the El Anatsui and Kim pointed out a few things I had not noticed the day before … Kim and her husband Tom introduced me to El Anatsui and I have to admit, i feel pretty cool knowing who he is! Thanks, Km and Tom.
And the Ithinkoutsidemybox guy was just setting up. I chose not to paint again today. ;0
A few more that were just fun or interesting:
Then we talked about the wooden “Petticoat Junction” water towers … which my PHd candidate Big Onion Tours scholar did not know why they are a New York thing …
And these two new buildings were really interesting. The first one for the waves and the second because the intensity of the hammered metal decreases as you go up.
And a modern rendition of “Unconditional Surrender” …
Smokestacks …
A resident with a sense of humor. 🙂
A little of this … a little of that …
If you are wondering what is at the end …
On our return walk, a few more of the El Anatsui …
And now lunch … Again, CW, thank you for the recommendation of the Fig and Olive. We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch and since it was Restaurant Week, we got a great deal!!
And finally, off to SoHo via cab from which we saw this funny little gold man … Who is he, anyone know?
In Soho I dragged Kim to Harney & Sons … they have the best pomegranate oolong tea … and then gave her a hug and headed north. Kim hit the furniture boutiques.
Pomegranate Oolong
The full leaves of premium Ti Quan Yin oolong are deliciously infused with tangy pomegranate to create this inspiring yet complex full-bodied blend that brews into a sweetly fragrant, silky textured cup of tea. The Ti Quan Yin oolong used is named after the Chinese “Goddess of Mercy.”
Great day, Thank you, Kim, for birthday lunch and a day in the city!
Back on the 6 train from Spring St. to 51st Street (note the beautiful tiles at Spring). … and then to LGA.
Goodbye, Big Onion via LaGuardia Airport (LGA). And BTW, the snacks at the Delta Club are far superior to those at the US Airways Club. So I was glad they are redoing the US Airways Cl.ub
USPS, First-Class Postage, FYI; 46cents!
Wall Street Journal (@WSJ)
1/28/13, 7:04 AM
The price of sending a first-class letter in the U.S. rose a penny Sunday to 46 cents.
final thoughts, pictures of where I walk: If you make it this far let me know. As a followup, my adventure companion sent me a picture that i love (see below). As we were walking, I told her that I almost always take a picture of my feet walking or standing and that the reason is because when I went to take the bar exam, I was walking over to the Atlanta Civic Center with a classmate and he looked down at his feet and said, “It’s going to be a good day. My family’s company made this sewer cap.” It was a good day … we both passed. Here’s Kim’s picture and her caption:
2013 birthday, NYC, The Cloisters, MTA, High Line Park, Chelsea, bucket list, foo dogs: First Stop The Cloisters … A bucket list item.
First thing I noticed this morning was this beautiful set of foo dogs in the window … $35,000 for the pair. 🙂
Next stop … The Cloisters. I view getting there as part of the adventure.
Subway 6 to Grand Central … Subway 7 to Times Square … Love the artwork in the Times Square Station. There are small tile pictures of New Year’s Eve revelers embedded in the standard white subway tiles. But there are also a MILLION ads for new movie Hansel and Gretel … Kills the interest … No cell service in Times Square Station … BUT a very nice policeman tried to help … However, he had never heard of the Cloisters and kept trying to tell me where the Met was …
Subway A to 190th … Got on Express so I may have to backtrack at some point. Strange to roar through stations. The stations become less and less interesting. No art, not even nice big colorful tile insets identifying the station. Nice fellow passengers assure me it stops at 190th.
187th Yeshiva University is a little cleaner with several men with yarmulkes.
190th St. Station … very strange … like a prison … except great posters in the elevator!
Half mile walk to the Cloisters … Along the Hudson. Gorgeous!
THE CLOISTERS!
The Cloisters is a modern building (1930s) built to hold to medieval art … as if Benedictine monastery … 1938 … “built as evocation of the Middle Ages “
moustached lion
bestiary dragon
Doorway … headless angels, Jesus, Mary, Clovis and son
Chapel
View from the Porch
Cuxa Cloister
Capitals … One with monkeys
Cloister means closed but is open to the world at the same time
Planted in garden … Rue, lavender, limes and aloe
Arch with fantastic beasts
Pontaut Chapter House
Early Gothic Hall
Virgin
Panels from destroyed Lady Chapel at St. Germaine
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
Tapestries
9 heroes
Julius Caesar, Alexander the great or hector of troy, Arthur (pic), King David & Joshua
Unicorns
(But I really loved the dogs!)
The Cloisters was well worth the visit. I shall return! And the return walk to the 190th St. Station was lovely … Although I wish the kind policemen driving through the park had given me a lift. 🙂
NYC, Chelsea, High Line Park, kith/kin: Now to Chelsea and a visit with a long-lost, but much-loved childhood friend …
6 train from 190th to 14 th …
190th – like a prison, but the elevator art in the other elevator was equally amusing.
175th – grim …
Woman with bike who was not amused by the singing cowboy!
Posters all advertising “The Lion King” again, all= overkill
168th – better, red stripe
BTW never get a raspberry scone at Starbucks … So dry I would not eat it but now am starved!
145th – yellow stripe, but nothing special
Cowboy playing … …. Singing in Spanish 🙂
135th – no stop
125th – green stripe, no art, express … Am I on the right train? … Bumpy as we pass other trains … Very bumpy …
110th – no stop … 96th – some decor, but no stop …
81st – no stop, but know that is the stop for museum of natural history … 72nd – clean, no stop, blue stripe …
59th – big stop, blue stripe, kiosks on the platform, transfers …
42nd – purple stripe … train was getting crowded, but emptying now …
34th Penn Station red stripe — Interesting iron work
23rd – no stop
14th – Out into the sun …
NYC, Chelsea, Bonsignour, Organic Avenue: Now to find Catherine and lunch … Please note … some pictures are the property of CW. You can probably tell the difference. 🙂
OK, I get off the subway and walk a few blocks … and I decide on Bonsignour on Jane St. Biggest turkey and avocado sandwich I have ever seen …
This little takeout shop in Greenwich Village is just the sort of place to visit when food becomes boring. It’s not that Bonsignour offers many unusual preparations, it’s that everything, even familiar dishes, tastes the way you imagine it should. That means cool poached salmon in a tart sauce of dill, capers and chopped tomatoes, and savory roast chicken breast cooked with scallions and thyme that is moist yet crisp on the outside and covered in herbs. You will also find unusual combinations that work, like lasagna made with chicken, spinach, roasted peppers and pesto. For dessert, Bonsignour offers rich, fudgy walnut brownies, flaky lemon walnut pastries and luscious raspberry linzer torte squares. — Eric Asimov
… then caught up Catherine and “enjoyed” Splendid Sweet Green Juice and Cauliflower Cleanse Salad. CW says Organic Avenue is the next Starbucks … I think they need some help with their product names. 🙂
Organic Avenue is the leading provider of organic cold pressed juices, raw food cleansing programs, snacks, superfoods, truly natural beauty products, healthy lifestyle education and community building events. The company helps people learn how to transition and maintain a healthy lifestyle that is pleasurable and sustainable, while also friendly to people, animals and the environment.
Organic Avenue is controlled by Weld North, an investment company concentrating on education, health and wellness, consumer services and marketing businesses. In partnership with KKR, a leading global investment firm, Weld North seeks to make control investments in businesses with high potential for long-term growth in cash flow. With strong and highly motivated management teams, the firm looks to accelerate growth through an obsessive focus on enhancing the customer experience, operational excellence, marketing expertise, and strategic and disciplined management.
NYC, Chelsea, Meatpacking District, High Line Park, public art, El Anatsui, kith/kin, friendship: At one point while Catherine and I were walking and talking, she said something to the effect that it was so wonderful that the friends you made were you were little were often the truest … and could survive 35+ years apart. Children do instinctively bond based on personality, etc. and not on social hierarchy, looks, school, etc. She was right … and I loved reconnecting on a very personal level with a great deal of trust.
As we walk toward the Meatpacking District and the High Line park, we noticed this building being “painted” to look like it has been in a bad fire. It is for a Michael J. Fox tv show (see… NBC Picks Up Michael J. Fox’s New Comedy Series.) Kinda cool …
LINE IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN’S MEATPACKING DISTRICT STUNNING VIEWS OF NEW YORK AND THE MIGHTY HUDSON RIVER THE STANDARD GRILL GERMAN BIERGARTEN LIVING ROOM LOUNGE THE STANDARD ICE RINK WITH ITS OWN RINK-SIDE KAFFEEKLATSCH SERVING APRÈS SKATE DRINKS & SNACKS PRIVATE DINING ROOMS AND EVENT SPACES 24-HOUR ROOM SERVICE 24-HOUR GYM LE BAIN DISCOTHÈQUE SEASONAL ROOFTOP BAR AND CRÊPERIE NON-STANDARD SHOPPING IN THE STANDARD SHOP COMPLIMENTARY BIKES FREE WIFI EVERYWHERE
(Did I tell CW I always take a picture of my feet?)
Meatpacking District, our first encounter on the Highline… fun guy, a little on the short side!
The El Anatsui …
High Line Art presents Nigeria-based artist El Anatsui’s Broken Bridge II, the largest outdoor installation ever by the artist. A monumental sculpture made of pressed tin and mirrors, the work will hang on an outdoor wall next to the High Line, between West 21st and West 22nd Streets, and will be visible from the park and the street below it. Broken Bridge II will be on view from November 21, 2012 through Summer 2013.
And very interesting to me and CW was the work of David Everitt-Carlson,
“I Think Outside My Box” (ITOMB) was born on 6 October, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan as a performance art and community outreach vehicle supporting Occupy Wall Street.
As a solution to signs he had made being constantly blown away or rained upon in the park, artist David Everitt-Carlson settled upon using a box instead of flat cardboard whilst sitting inside and painting. ITOMB was first featured in the Wall Street Journal on 7 October, 2011.
Over the course of the next 48 days, he painted all of 12 panels, each with a different theme and began to branch out into individual smaller signs that could be used by other participants for a small donation.
Off to Lower Manhattan … to find the Labyrinth in Battery Park …
But after a walk alongside Ground Zero, St. Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church, we can’t find the labyrinth. It was destroyed by Sandy and has not been restored. Next time …
Camino de Paz Labyrinths in collaboration with the Battery Conservancy and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation created the Labyrinth for Contemplation situated in the Jerusalem Grove at Battery Park, Manhattan.
The Labyrinth for Contemplation enables the families of those who lost relatives and friends, visitors, local residents and workers, with an interactive tool for reflection, grieving, honoring, and healing. The Labyrinth transforms the existing Jerusalem Grove of 11 cedar trees into a place of pilgrimage by providing all visitors with the opportunity of actively offering respect through walking the path.
NYC, dinner, SEO: When in Rome … Eat Asian! Birthday dinner — at SEO Japanese Restaurant. Overall, pretty good meal. I really liked John’s calamari salad … Calamari Salad, Miso Soup, Sushi And Sashimi Combination, Pear and Banana dessert
NYC, The Waldorf Astoria, Secret Train Platform, FDR, history: On the way back to the hotel from dinner, John and I looked down on the train tracks that run directly under the Waldorf Astoria and remembered this little bit of historical trivia – that FDR had a private entrance from the tracks to the hotel. One of the bell men overheard us and did a great job telling us about what he knew including that the platform had also been used to get workers in passed picket lines during strikes.
Over the weekend we had a chance to visit the long-abandoned Waldorf-Astoria train platform, which allowed VIPs to enter the hotel in a more private manner—most famously it was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, possibly to hide the fact that he was in a wheelchair suffering from polio. The mysterious track, known as Track 61, still houses the train car and private elevator, which were both large enough for FDR’s armor-plated Pierce Arrow car. Legend has it that the car would drive off the train, onto the platform and straight into the elevator, which would lead to the hotel’s garage. Trainjotting has some more history regarding the platform, known as Track 61, and notes that the quest for it “has become a holy grail for many urban explorers.”
Some fun facts regarding the timeline of the tracks: It was first used by General Pershing in 1938, and less than 30 years after that, in 1965, it was the venue for a party thrown by Andy Warhol (fittingly called The Underground Party).
And a few thoughts on the Waldorf … when I stayed here two years ago, it was not in good shape. Well, this time, the public areas look great and our room was quite nice, large with wonderful fixtures. The service was very good, but not excellent, however. One thing I missed was turn down service … and the reason is because someone needs to pull the shades down and close the curtains … a great deal of city light and noise comes in at night. Otherwise, we had an excellent stay.
UNC President Tom Ross, Gov. Pat McCrory, liberal arts education: I’m with you, Tom Ross!
“The University’s value to North Carolina should not be measured by jobs filled alone. Our three-part mission of teaching, research, and public service requires that we prepare students with the talent and abilities to succeed in the workforce, because talent will be the key to economic growth. We must also continue to serve the state through our agricultural and industrial extension programs, our Small Business and Technology Development Centers, our Area Health Education Centers, and through the many other ways our faculty and students are engaged in our communities. Higher education plays a key role in ensuring a higher quality of life for all North Carolinians.”
Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A, LGTB Controversy, Christianity, culture: What a nice twist to this story …
This is why, after discussions with Dan and Chick-fil-A, Campus Pride suspended our campaign. Like Dan, we had faith. It took time to be proven publicly.
Now it is all about the future, one defined, let’s hope, by continued mutual respect. I will not change my views, and Dan will likely not change his, but we can continue to listen, learn and appreciate “the blessing of growth” that happens when we know each other better. I hope that our nation’s political leaders and campus leaders might do the same.
In the end, it is not about eating (or eating a certain chicken sandwich). It is about sitting down at a table together and sharing our views as human beings, engaged in real, respectful, civil dialogue. Dan would probably call this act the biblical definition of hospitality. I would call it human decency. So long as we are all at the same table and talking, does it matter what we call it or what we eat?
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice’s 200th Birthday, Janeites: Happy birthday, P&P!
This week marks an important milestone for anyone who swoons at the very mention of Mr. Darcy. Pride and Prejudice is turning 200, and to celebrate its bicentennial, cartoonist Jen Sorensen drew up an illustrated version of the classic.
Blogs and forums dedicated to Austen and Austen-style fan fiction abound across the internet. The Jane Austen Society of North America (Jasna) boasts 4,500 members and no fewer than 65 branches.
In October 2012, more than 700 Janeites – many attired in bonnets and early 19th Century-style dresses – gathered in Brooklyn, New York for a Jasna event that incorporated three days of lectures, dance workshops, antique exhibitions, a banquet and a ball.
It’s a curious phenomenon when one considers that Austen won little fame in her own lifetime, dying aged 41 in 1817 with only six novels to her name.
While she may be regarded as one of the greatest writers in English literature, it’s difficult to imagine a similar level of fandom emerging around a novelist like, say, Charles Dickens.
For all that her stories can be by turns bleak and waspish, however, it’s the romance of Austen’s world that many Janeites say drew them in.
My novels Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict could have been considered semi-autobiographical had they not involved time travel and body switching. I believe that every lady should have her very own Austen hero and every man his Austen heroine.
When not engaged in new time travel adventures (aka working on the third Austen Addict novel or turning my short story Intolerable Stupidity into a novel), I can be found on Jane Austen Addict.com (and so can loads of quizzes, games, the Sex and the Austen Girl web series, Austen parody videos, a blog, and lots more time-wasting fun!).
NYC, winter, Big Onion Tours, Greenwich Village: Looking pretty grim on our arrival …
My tour … with a few photos and comments …
Stroll through one of New York’s most picturesque neighborhoods as we explore the unique and legendary home to artists, writers and radicals. Our walk has a special emphasis on the history and architecture of the Village. Stops could include: Jefferson Market Courthouse, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the “hanging elm”, the Stonewall Inn, and sites associated with Stanford White, Aaron Burr, Edith Wharton, John Sloan, Evelyn Nesbit, Jimi Hendrix, and Tom Pain
1. Marie’s Crisis … Thomas Paine who wrote Common Sense and The Crisis Papers died here … That is the “crisis.” And Marie … Gypsy bohemian. 1920s had a tea room … That is the “Marie.”
To walk downstairs into this old West Village bar is to step out of time a bit. As an amicable regular might tell you, the room first opened in the 1850s as a prostitutes’ den, became a boy bar by the 1890s, and lasted through Prohibition, when it was known as Marie’s (the “Crisis” came from “The Crisis Papers,” by Thomas Paine, who died in the same house). For the past 35 years, it’s plowed through as a piano joint in which neighboring gay men and musical theater performers gather round the keys nightly and sing solo—numbers like “Stranger in Paradise” or “You’re the Top”—to create a mood of both giddiness and longing.
There’s a lot of history attached to Marie’s Crisis, a West Village bar named after The Crisis Papers by Thomas Paine, who supposedly died in the same house. The bar had its beginnings as a brothel in the 1850s, speakeasy-ed its way through Prohibition, and finally found its way to the gays, who have been belting out Les Miserables in the basement ever since.
2. Northern Dispensary 1827 – Served “worthy poor” .. Most famous worthy poor was Edgar Allen Poe. Free clinic until 1980. … Gay HIV aids were patients. Lawsuit drove into bankruptcy. It’s been closed 15 years. Deed restrictive … so no use.
According to Terry Miller’s “Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way” (Crown, 1990) the dispensary refused treatment to AIDS patients in 1986 and, after trouble with New York City’s Human Rights Commission, closed in 1989. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York arranged with the trustees to take over the building for an AIDS clinic, but now would like to turn it over to the nonprofit organization, BRC Human Services, for conversion into a 15-room single-room-occupancy structure with a community kitchen for homeless people with AIDS.
Originally Potter’s field … 10000 + buried. Also, dueling and hangings … Hanging Tree see pic of squirrel. When Lafayette did victory tour they hung 22 people in his honor.
A marsh. A cemetery. A parade ground. A gathering spot for avant-garde artists. A battleground for chess enthusiasts. A playground for canines and children. Washington Square Park has served various roles for its community throughout the years, adapting to meet its needs. Well-known for its arch, honoring George Washington, the man for whom the park is named, and its fountain, the arch’s elder by 43 years and a popular meeting spot, Washington Square Park also houses several other monuments and facilities.
The center of NYU is its Washington Square campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. One of the city’s most creative and energetic communities, the Village is a historic neighborhood that has attracted generations of writers, musicians, artists, and intellectuals. NYU, in keeping with its founder’s vision, is “in and of the city”: the University – which has no walls and no gates – is deeply intertwined with New York City, drawing inspiration from its vitality.
6. Washington Square arch 1889 to honor 100th Anniversary of George Washington’s of first inauguration. The first arch was temporary. Neighborhood wanted permanent. Recreated first on smaller scale. Some thought this an affront to poor on south side of park. It was built anyway in 1895. Sanford White designed the arch. And then there is the Beanpot Rebellion … John Sloan “ash can school” was a leader.
The Arch at Washington Square Park was originally built in wood half a block away from its current location for the Centennial of George Washington’s Presidential inauguration in 1889. It was then commissioned in marble and completed in its current location at Fifth Avenue in the early 1890’s. The community came together to raise funds to build the permanent Washington Square Arch which was designed by noted architect Stanford White. The sculptures which adorn the ‘legs’ of the Arch — Washington At War and Washington at Peace, described in this previous blog entry — were not completed until 1916 and 1918.
…
Stanford White died in 1906 (he was murdered atop the 2nd version of Madison Square Garden, since demolished, a building he also designed) and did not see the two Washington sculptures completed and adorning the Arch.
Judson Memorial Church, another building White designed, can be seen through the Arch – as White intended.
One snowy night in January 1917, the painters Marcel Duchamp, John Sloan and four friends climbed the arch in Washington Square, built a bonfire in a bean pot and, firing cap pistols in the air, drunkenly proclaimed Greenwich Village, ”a free and independent republic.”
They had come to Greenwich Village along with an unprecedented number of young artists and writers in rebellion against the strictures of 19th-century small-town Protestant culture. Together they helped put an American face on European modernism and almost every contemporary social movement that galvanized the country, then and later: feminism, socialism, gay liberation, Marxism, Freudianism. Not since Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Emerson and Thoreau made their homes in Concord, has one location harbored so much American artistic energy
7. Washington Mews was originally carriage houses for townhouses on the square. Artist John Sloan lived here as did critic Edmund Wilson …
Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) is widely regarded as the preeminent American man of letters of the twentieth century. Over his long career, he wrote for Vanity Fair, helped edit The New Republic, served as chief book critic for The New Yorker, and was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Wilson was the author of more than twenty books, including Axel’s Castle, Patriotic Gore, and a work of fiction, Memoirs of Hecate County.
8. Mabel Dodge‘s home on . 5th avenue … Artist and thinkers came to her salon. Ex Margaret Sanger … women described as wearing their hair bobbed and wearing mannish clothes. Men wore dinner attire or artsy clothes.
Mabel Dodge’s bohemian salons in the Village
Greenwich Village in the teens was a forward-thinking place, populated by artists and writers, anarchists and free-love practitioners, labor leaders and birth-control proponents. Bringing them together each week in her apartment at 23 Fifth Avenue was 33-year-old Mabel Dodge.
Was she really interested in new ideas, or just a celebrity hound? It’s hard to say; she simply proclaimed that she “wanted to know everybody.”
…
In New York, now divorced, Mabel decided to gather the city’s “movers and shakers” together during weekly salons, where ideas could be presented and debated.
Mabel’s salons were legendary. Anarchist Emma Goldman talked to poet Edward Arlington Robinson, while Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger chatted up artist Alfred Stieglitz.
Writer John Reed, who later became her lover, also was a regular. She held nights devoted to ”dangerous characters,” “sex antagonism,” and “evenings of art and unrest.”
The salons came to and end after a few years. Mabel wrote for various publications and put out her memoirs in the 1930s. By then she was living in Taos, New Mexico, with her fourth husband. She died there in 1962.
8. CVS before a famous bar old Cedar Tavern. It was painter’s bar … ex Jackson Polkack
The famous Cedar Tavern was the number one hangout for New York School artists like Pollock, de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline, just to name a few. They gathered here at least every other night to drink, socialize, and discuss art. In fact, it is often said that it was here that Abstract Expressionism was born and bred. The tavern changed locations several times, but in 1945 it moved to 24 University Place, where it experienced its heyday. Pollock and the like were fond of the Cedar for its cheap drinks (15 cents a beer, to be exact) and unpretentious location on then off-the-beaten-track University Place.
The Scottish poet Ruthven Todd introduced Dylan Thomas to the bar, and the great Welsh bard was soon quaffing oceans of ale in the Horse’s back room. Thomas made the place his headquarters on his tumultuous stateside forays, and soon tourists were lining up eight deep at the bar to watch him carouse. Today a plaque on the wall commemorates the November night in 1953 when the poet, still only 39, downed one last shot, staggered outside and collapsed. After falling into a coma at the nearby Chelsea Hotel, he was whisked to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he died.
Thomas’ boozy soirees inevitably attracted other writers. Novelists Norman Mailer and James Baldwin drank at the White Horse. Vance Bourjaily (his The End of My Life was an influential novel of the period) organized a regular Sunday afternoon writer’s klatch. Anais Nin was one of the few notorious women writers who hung out at the Horse. Seymour Krim, the now all-but-forgotten early Village Voice writer whose collected pieces, Views Of A Near-Sighted Cannoneer, helped spawn the “New Journalism” of the late ’60s, hung out there. Village Voice staffers came over from their original offices on nearby Sheridan Square. Delmore’s publisher, James Laughlin of New Directions, kept an apartment for visiting writers nearby.
While Jack Kerouac was living in a dilapidated Westside townhouse with the model Joan Haverty, writing On The Road on a roll of teletype paper, he used to drink so heavily at the White Horse that he was 86’d a number of times. In his book Desolation Angels he describes discovering “Go Home Kerouac” scrawled on a bathroom wall. Like Delmore, Kerouac also put in time at the Marlton Hotel — where he wrote Tristessa, a bittersweet re
9. NYU history … Different mission not religious … Main building built with Sing Sing prison labor … Tradesman fought “Protest with rocks ‘.
More than 175 years ago, Albert Gallatin, the distinguished statesman who served as secretary of the treasury under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, declared his intention to establish “in this immense and fast-growing city … a system of rational and practical education fitting for all and graciously opened to all.” Founded in 1831, New York University is now one of the largest private universities in the United States. Of the more than 3,000 colleges and universities in America, New York University is one of only 60 member institutions of the distinguished Association of American Universities.
The fire spread quickly — so quickly that in a half hour it was over, having consumed all it could in the large, airy lofts on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building, a half block east of Washington Square Park.
In its wake, the smoldering floors and wet streets were strewn with 146 bodies, all but 23 of them young women.
The Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, as it is commonly recorded in history books, was one of the nation’s landmark disasters, a tragedy that enveloped the city in grief and remorse but eventually inspired important shifts in the nation’s laws, particularly those protecting the rights of workers and the safety of buildings.
The tragedy galvanized Americans, who were shaken by the stories of Jewish and Italian strivers who had been toiling long hours inside an overcrowded factory only to find themselves trapped in a firestorm inside a building’s top floors where exit doors may have been locked. At least 50 workers concluded that the better option was simply to jump.
Triangle was one of the nation’s largest makers of high-collar blouses that were part of the shirtwaist style, a sensible fusion of tailored shirt and skirt. Designed for utility, the style was embraced at the turn of the century by legions of young women who preferred its hiked hemline and unfettered curves to the confining, street-sweeping dresses that had hobbled their mothers and aunts.
■ 38 Washington Sq. South (SE corner of Macdougal and Fourth Street) is where Eugene O’Neill lived in a boarding house in 1916, when he was having an affair with Louise Bryant (Mrs. John Reed). The earlier building was replaced by the NYU School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall in 1951.
The gas isn’t all that it should be, It flickers – and yet I declare There’s pleasure or near it, for young men of spirit At Forty-Two Washington Square.
In winter the water is frigid, In summer the water is hot; And we’re forming a club for controlling the tub For there’s hardly one bath to the lot.
You shave in unlathering Croton, If there’s water at all, which is rare– But life isn’t bad for a talented lad At Forty-Two Washington Square.
Nobody questions your morals And nobody asks for the rent- And there’s no one to pry if you’re tight, you and I, Or demand how our evenings are spent.
The furniture’s ancient but plenty, The linen is spotless and fair, 0 life is a joy to a broth of a boy, At Forty-Two Washington Square
13 MacDougal St. …Marxist … Folk music (Dylan). I. 1950s Robert Moses … Park district commissioner made his goal to make the city more car friendly and decided to run a highway right through the park …Jane Jacobs gets fight fighting highway, Eleanor Roosevelt, too. And also the Folk Musicians. Moses banned the musicians from park retreat to Judson Church. Ban lifted 1963 …
14. Eleanor Roosevelt apartment … Moved because she could not have black friends come through front door.
After F.D.R. died in 1945, Eleanor stopped writing her nationally syndicated column — for four days. She packed her suitcases and left the White House. Eight months later, President Harry Truman asked her to be a delegate to the U.N.’s first session in London. She accepted — and immediately began to cram. “I knew that as the only woman, I’d better be better than anybody else. So I read every paper,” she said later. “And they were very dull sometimes, because State Department papers can be very dull.”
The delegates elected her to chair the committee drafting a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She worked 18-hour days and traveled the world. She joined the board of the NAACP, and right-wing newspapers dropped her column because of her views on civil rights.
In 1962, Eleanor, 78, died of tuberculosis in her New York City apartment. She’d stopped writing her column just six weeks before. Her last dispatch contemplated the problems of poverty, education and housing. After more than three decades in public life, she still held out hope.
15. Jefferson Market Courthouse Library … Famous murder trial … Women’s prison on same block now torn down Angela Davis _____ and incarcerated there
It follows the chronology of the Jefferson Market Courthouse and library from 1876 to the present. The 1876 structure is actually the oldest building in NYPL (the Schwarzman Building at 42nd and 5th was begun in 1902). The archive not only covers the history of this building, but provides glimpses into the history of Greenwich Village as well. The papers and photographs that had been stuffed into a filing cabinet are now preserved in 18 acid-free boxes. If anyone wishes to develop their knowledge of Greenwich Village history, they might want to take a look at this unique collection.
There is so much fascinating history just in this site alone!
Jefferson Market began life as a traditional marketplace. A courthouse was erected on the site in 1876. The courthouse received a lot of attention in 1906 when it was used for the Harry K. Thaw / Stanford White murder trial. Later, the women’s house of detention, situated where the garden is now, achieved a certain degree of notoriety.
We have a print of the old market stalls adjacent to the wooden fire tower that perversely burned down; copies of the hand-drawn pen and ink courthouse floor plans; a print of a painting by John Sloan, owned by The Whitney, that shows Jefferson Market in the shadow of the El train that ran up 6th Avenue.
Just after 3 a.m., a police raid of the Stonewall Inn–a gay club located on New York City’s Christopher Street–turns violent as patrons and local sympathizers begin rioting against the police.
Although the police were legally justified in raiding the club, which was serving liquor without a license among other violations, New York’s gay community had grown weary of the police department targeting gay clubs, a majority of which had already been closed. The crowd on the street watched quietly as Stonewall’s employees were arrested, but when three drag queens and a lesbian were forced into the paddy wagon, the crowd began throwing bottles at the police. The officers were forced to take shelter inside the establishment, and two policemen were slightly injured before reinforcements arrived to disperse the mob. The protest, however, spilled over into the neighboring streets, and order was not restored until the deployment of New York’s riot police.
The so-called Stonewall Riot was followed by several days of demonstrations in New York and was the impetus for the formation of the Gay Liberation Front as well as other gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights organizations. It is also regarded by many as history’s first major protest on behalf of equal rights for homosexuals. via The Stonewall Riot — History.com This Day in History — 6/28/1969.
And President Obama even referenced the Stonewall Inn Riots in his Second Inaugural Speech, January 21. 2013 …
But Obama’s reference was very likely lost on many in the generations that have come of age long after gay men resisted police harassment at the Stonewall Inn gay bar in New York City.
Their five days of riots in the summer of 1969 kindled the nation’s gay-rights movement, which Obama placed in the heart of the nation’s civil rights struggles in Monday’s speech. Obama said:
“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall, just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone, to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”
So, what was Stonewall?
To get the story from someone who was part of the nascent gay-rights effort, and who has written extensively about Stonewall’s role as the galvanizing event of the movement, we turned to Martin Duberman.
NYC, dinner, El Quinto Pino : At the recommendation of my tour guide,I tried a tapas restaurant in Chelsa … All by my lonesome … John’s doing the big beef meal at Del Frisco .., tapas for me at El Quinto Pino … Wish me luck … . Tiny little place in Chelsea … And my blast from the past friend dropped by before we meet tomorrow … Thanks CW … great recommendation!
Tapas
Salmorejo: Gazpacho’s “thicker cousin,” chopped egg, taquitos of Spanish ham • 9
Tortilla de Gambas: Shrimp wafers • 5
Habitas con Jamón: Favas beans, serrano ham • 8 Pinchos Morunos: Marinated Lamb skewer • 8
moon: Enough said, it is big, but here you can only see it behind the clouds … and you still know it is big. : ):
Twitter: My favs today …
Anyone else watching Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Game of Thrones on tv? We are so modern and so newly hungry for ancient imagery and story. — Krista Tippett (@kristatippett)
My favorite perennial Super Bowl food stories: Shortages of avocados and chicken wings predicted, panic ensues. But they are often not true. — Kim Severson (@kimseverson)
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R – GA, Political Insider: Thank you for your years of service to GA and to the Nation, Senator. I would love to be a fly on your back porch!
“I’m going to have a life after this,” Chambliss said. “Sitting on a back porch drinking whisky with some of y’all is exciting to think about.”
Paris, Best Friend in Paris: Small world! My Charlotte friends “stalked” my FB page to find the name of my Paris guide and friend, Donna Morris. i highly recommend her. And loved getting this photo of them having a great time! Best Friend in Paris: Custom, Personalized Tours of Paris.
Bussing back to Saint Germaine with D ‘s friends 🙂
Jane Austen, portrait, British Portrait Gallery, Jane Austen’s World: I dragged my husband to see this portrait …
It is here , many of you will know, is the tiny portrait of Jane Austen attributed to her sister Cassandra and drawn in 1810 using pencil and watercolours. It is an unprepossessing little picture. It’s great worth is in who it is. But, if you stand back from the plinth with the perspex box on its summit containing Jane and view the whole vista you will notice that Jane is surrounded by a halo of super star writers. She is the centre of the group.
Bottom left is Sir Walter Scott. Moving clockwise next comes Samuel Taylor Coleridge, at the top is John Keats and then as you move down right of Jane, Robert Southey follows and last, bottom right, is Robert Burns. Quite a group, and there she is in the middle, our Jane. If you think I am imagining the halo metaphor, walk behind the plinth with Jane displayed and you will notice that there is nothing on the wall, there is a space. The halo metaphor works. The only thing behind Jane is a handwritten catalogue number on the back of the portrait itself. It reads; “NPG 360, Jane Austen.” It’s written in pencil in a reasonably legible hand. A scrawled note such as somebody might write as a memo to themselves on a post it and stick on their fridge door.
NYC, The Cloisters: If you get a chance while in NYC..
.“The Cloisters was assembled from architectural elements dating from the twelfth through the fifteenth century, and the collection comprises approximately 3,000 works of art. To add to the experience: the gardens at The Cloisters are treasures in themselves, and the views of the Hudson River are spectacular.” —Tom Campbell, The Director’s Tour http://met.org/WAKiItMade in, present-day France | Cloister from Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa | ca. 1130–40
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wind turbines, UK, Ireland: How to create a conflict …
‘Giant’ Wind Turbines – British and Irish ministers will sign an agreement Thursday to build the world’s largest wind turbines across the Irish midlands, reports the BBC. Environmentalists have described the plan to build the 600 feet towers, which could generate energy for millions of U.K. homes, as “crazy” and believe that it will damage the Irish landscape. The proposed wind towers would transfer energy via cables under the Irish Sea back to the U.K. Even though developers claim that thousands of Irish jobs will be created, Andrew Duncan from Lakelands Wind Information said “it seems to be an Irish solution to a British problem … it seems they want to impose these wind farms on the Irish general public instead.” Irish energy minister Pat Rabbitte confirmed that the project is still in its infancy.
“Friendfluence”, Carlin Flora, bookshelf, Sophisticated Dorkiness: Sounds like my friend group …
Review: “Friendfluence,” writes journalist Carlin Flora, “is the powerful and often underappreciated role that friends — past and present — play in determining the shape and direction of our lives.” Studies have shown that our friends help mold our identities and, as adults, subtly influence our beliefs, values and physical and emotional health. Our friends are both the most stable and the most flexible relationships we have, yet friendships are not nearly as well-studied or well-recognized as our relationships with our families and our spouses.
In Friendfluence, Flora takes a broad look at the research that is available about friendship, starting with our childhood pals, the benefits and dark sides of friendship, and how technology is changing the way we make friends and maintain friendships. In the book, Flora makes a convincing argument that our friends are more than just extras — they are vital relationships in our lives.
history, Britain, Jane Austen, Embarking On A Course of Study:
I happened upon this great series called Ian Hislop’s Emotional History of Britain. It’s in three parts but, alas, only part one is on YouTube. Still, it’s the part that covers Austen so, hurray!
Ian doesn’t only touch on S&S, but also P&P, and Emma. And the curator of the Jane Austen House Museum has some great advice for ladies to follow when choosing who to give your heart to. (Hint: Knightley to Emma: “If I loved you less, I could say more.”
Ian walks a bit through the house, which is lovely to see. There’s a wonderful peace to this six minute section. I miss her house!
But don’t just watch the Austen bit, watch the whole thing. It begins discussing how Brits used to be considered very emotional by other Europeans. And how a romantic sensibility was to be cultivated and prized, in the early to mid 1700s. Then he traces how the tide turned to the ‘stiff upper lip’.
macroeconomics, The Economist: As a college economics major, I am amazed at how much understanding of the subject area i have lost.
MAINSTREAM macroeconomics has a pretty poor reputation these days, both among the public at large and among economists in other fields. This is hardly surprising. There is little consensus on even the most basic questions in macro. Ask top academics why America’s post-crisis recovery has been so slow and you will get many different conflicting answers. But the most obvious reason for the widespread disdain is that the profession failed to predict that the biggest and most painful downturn since the Great Depression was even possible.
Now, several groups of economists are trying to rebuild macro, often melding previously discarded ideas with sophisticated new mathematical and computational techniques. This week’s print edition gives an overview of some of the interesting new developments, but in this post, I want to look more at the history of the field. The following slideshow by Markus Brunnermeier and Delwin Olivan of Princeton is a good place to start:
As this week’s article makes clear, however, a new generation of reformers and revolutionaries are figuring out how to realistically depict the financial system. Subsequent posts will discuss these and other worthwhile ideas that may reshape the field.
Super Bowl Ads, YouTube, AllThingsD: Personally, I’d rather be forced to watch the game to see the ads …
Note that if you’re one of those weird people who wants to watch the Super Bowl on a browser instead of a TV, and you’re one of the people who wants to see the ads (smallish Venn overlap there, methinks), you’ll be in luck this year. CBS, which is streaming the game on the Web, says that it will also stream the broadcast ads on the Web — something that NBC didn’t do when it streamed last year’s game.
A man aboard a New Zealand-bound Qantas Airlines flight was asked to remove his “Princess Bride” t-shirt after other passengers reported that they found it intimidating.
NYC, man’s best friend, graphics, @brainpickings: An Interactive Watercolor Map of the City’s Canine Caucus…
New York City has a special relationship with its dogs — just look at the treasure trove that is The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs, one of 2012′s best art books. Now, the data team at WNYC — consisting of John Keefe, Stephen Reader, Steven Melendez and Louise Ma — has put together this fantastic map of NYC’s dog names and breeds, explorable by area, down to the ZIP code. The data is displayed over Stamen’s stunning watercolor map of NYC, one of the works featured in Art Pickings
A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement.
He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
‘Al-Gebra is a problem for us’, the Attorney General said. ‘They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.’ They use secret code names like “X” and “Y” and refer to themselves as “unknowns” but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, “There are 3 sides to every triangle.”
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Obama said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”
Davidson Basketball: Another great day to be a wildcat … Wildcats won! DAV(13):79 APP:56
In the last 200 years, Austen’s “darling child” has spawned hundreds of literary offspring, making it one of the most frequently adapted novels in history. The novel, which centers on the rocky romance between the spirited, obstinate protagonist Elizabeth Bennet and the proud, taciturn aristocrat Fitzwilliam Darcy, has been through countless parodies, film, TV, stage and Web adaptations and erotic retellings. It has been reimagined as a comic book, a board book for toddlers, mashed up with zombies and remade as a Bollywood musical. Austen acolytes have published hundreds of literary reboots.
Austen wrote anonymously, and died, unmarried, in her creative prime, leaving just six complete novels behind. But from this narrow canon, a vast industry took shape, and today her brand has become more marketable than ever.
In celebration of the 200th anniversary of ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ a homage to the illustrious author, Jane Austen.
Now the field’s about to get much more crowded. To mark the 200th anniversary of “Pride and Prejudice” this year, novelists, scholars, biographers and filmmakers are releasing a flood of new homages and critical studies to cash in on the seemingly bottomless appetite for all things Austen. More than a dozen books about the author will hit bookstores in coming months, including a new biography, a book that explores her cult status, two studies of Austen-era England and two books about Austen and economics.
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“Austen really is inexhaustible,” says Claudia Johnson, a Princeton University English professor and author of the 2012 book “Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures.” “Each generation tends to think they have discovered her.”
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But for die-hard fans like Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems and founder of Urban Decay cosmetics, there will never be enough. Ms. Lerner discovered Austen in college in the 1980s. She has read “Pride and Prejudice” well over 100 times, and “Persuasion” more than 200 times.
When Cisco went public in 1990, Ms. Lerner used part of her fortune to buy Jane Austen’s brother’s estate in Chawton, England. She founded a library there and created her own publishing house, Chawton House Press, an imprint dedicated to publishing books about Austen and other 18th- and 19th-century English women writers.
Chawton House’s first title, released in 2011, was “Second Impressions,” a sequel to “Pride and Prejudice,” which follows Elizabeth and Darcy on a trip through Europe 10 years after their wedding. Ms. Lerner, who wrote it under the pen name Ava Farmer, spent 26 years researching the book. But she still feels the weight of her predecessor.
“I tried really hard, but I read some sentence she wrote, and it’s so much better than mine, it’s crushing,” Ms. Lerner said.
As anyone who’s ever debated the finer points of Colin Firth vs. Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy will tell you, women have a bottomless appetite for the small oeuvre of Jane Austen. Every generation gets the Pride and Prejudice adaptation it deserves, each version performs well and reliably reignites sales of her books. She’s backlash-proof. Now the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice is upon us, and the Wall Street Journal reports that a whole new cast of publishers and producers are lining up to cash in.
Universities are reportedly closing doors to Austen scholars, but Austen mania, and its direct descendants, Twilight mania and Fifty Shades mania, continues to prop up some corners of the dejected publishing industry. First, there are the cross-genre spin-off books: Death Comes to Pemberley (murder-mystery), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (gore-parody), and Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (erotic). Then there are the nonfiction homages — What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved, Jane Austen: Game Theorist, and Jane Austen’s Guide to Thrift — all due this year. HarperFiction has commissioned remakes of all of her novels by well-known writers, including Prep author Curtis Sittenfeld.
Sundance Film Festival, “Smashed”, Speakeasy – WSJ:
Last year at the Sundance Film Festival, James Ponsoldt’s second film, “Smashed”—about a couple struggling with alcoholism—won the Special Jury Prize and got picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. This year, Ponsoldt returned to the U.S. dramatic competition with “The Spectacular Now,” a coming-of-age drama starring Shailene Woodley “The Descendents” and breakout star Miles Teller, who won raves for his portrayal of an alcoholic teen.“When I saw his audition I thought he has that John Cusack thing mixed with Elvis mixed with Bill Murray,” says producer Andrew Lauren following a Tuesday screening of the movie.The film’s plot, adapted from Tim Tharp’s novel by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber “500 Days of Summer” centers around Teller’s character, Sutter Keely, a charismatic but often drunk high-school senior—the actor described him as a “sad clown” in a Q&A session—who falls in love with Woodley’s Amy, a brainy type with problems of her own. The film garnered positive reviews: The Daily Beast called it “one of the most poignant and gratifying films of this year’s Sundance” Critics drew comparisons to 1980’s John Hughes films, Cameron Crowe’s classic “Say Anything,” as well as last year’s teen hit, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.””We never looked at [“Perks”] as our model,” says Mr. Lauren, who financed the film for under $5 million, less than a third of the budget of “Perks,” which starred Emma Watson and brought in nearly $30 million globally at the box office. “Hopefully we can have that kind of success.”The film, which was made for an “under $5 million” budget, was among the first features to sell following strong interest from multiple distributors. A24, a new multiplatform player announced that it bought the North American rights to the film on Monday, and has plans to release the movie theatrically this summer.“They think it has commercial viability which is very important to us,” said Mr. Lauren. “They see this as a ‘Garden State’ or a ‘500 Days of Summer’—the type of films that kids are dying to see.” As for the common theme of alcoholism all of Ponsoldt’s three feature films, Mr. Lauren says it is “coincidental.”
Today, we’re introducing Vine: a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity. Now that you can easily capture motion and sound, we look forward to seeing what you create.
You can read more about the app on the Vine blog. Vine is currently available on the iPhone and iPod touch. You can download it for free from the App Store. We’re working now to bring it to other platforms, so stay tuned for that.
Milky Way, technology, Maria Popova, @brainpicker: Astounding zoomable tour of the center of the Milky Way galaxy!
This image is a 1 billion pixel RVB mosaic of the galactic center region (340 millions pixels in each R,V and B color). It shows the region spanning from Sagittarius (with the Milky Way center and M8/M20 area on the left) to Scorpius (with colorful Antares and Rho Ophiuchus region on the right) and cat paw nebula (red nebula at the bottom). This mosaic was assembled from 52 different sky fields made from 1200 individual images and 200 hours total exposure time, final image size is 24000×14000 pixels. The images were taken with a SBIG STL camera + Takahashi FSQ106Ed f/3.6 telescope and NJP160 mount from the clear skies of ESO Paranal Observatory in Chile. This mosaic is one of the three parts of the ESO Gigagalaxy Zoom project together with this incredible whole sky mosaic image by ESO/S.Brunier and this fantastic ESO mosaic image of the Lagoon nebula region.
Edith Wharton, Birthday: 11 Reasons The Author Was A Badass. 🙂
The phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” might be about Edith Wharton’s family.
Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones. Her family, the Joneses, were a prominent, wealthy New York family. Some historians believe that this idiom may have been originally referring to her family (though there are also other guesses at to where it came from). (This image is Edith Wharton as a child. What a cutie).
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She designed and built her own home.
She was great at garden designing and interior designing. She designed and built her home ‘The Mount,’ which is seriously one of the most beautiful buildings we’ve ever seen. Lots of weddings are now held there (hopefully one day that will include mine).
Over the past couple of decades, a number of brands have outsourced the production of some of America’s most iconic products to cut down on manufacturing costs. Even America’s greatest past time, baseball, is played with balls stitched together in Costa Rica.
There are no panaceas or magic bullets. No matter what we do: the tides will continue to come in, and so we have to make our city more resilient in other ways, especially when it comes to our critical infrastructure. New Yorkers have never been shy about taking on big challenges, and taking our destiny into our own hands. I have every confidence that by confronting this challenge head on we will succeed, just as we have so many times before. There is no storm, no fire, no terrorist act, that can destroy the spirit of our city, and keep us from looking forward, envisioning a better tomorrow, and bringing it to life.
Out Of Sight (and Outside The Law), Sebstian Junger: Really good speaker …
Whether covering ground wars, drug wars, or a war on terror, journalists undertake enormous risks to uphold Americans’ right to know what’s done in the name of democracy, revealing the human costs and truths veiled in secrecy. Sebastian Junger (Which Way Is The Front Line From Here?), Jeremy Scahill (Dirty Wars), Peter Bergen (MANHUNT), Shaul Schwarz (Narco Cultura), James Ball (We Steal Secrets), and moderator Stephen Engelberg (ProPublica) walk us through the war zones and the corridors of power.
Atlanta, The White House, kith/kin: Breakfast at The White House to celebrate the bingo winners. Mom $35, MS $42, D $0 …
MegaBus: Waiting on the MegaBus where the vending guy entertained us all selling 2–pack pregnancy tests for $3, yes, pregnancy tests … The students from Spring Hill College, a catholic college of 1300 students in Mobile AL , headed to DC for the March for Life were shocked and amused at the irony. Asked how many tests he sells, the vending man responded, “at least 5 a day.” And then quipped, “hey, when you need to know, you need to know.” You never know what you will experience on the MegaBus.
This time I am downstairs in the seat with table on the high side … life is good on the MegaBus!
Funny, I hear snoring … I don’t think I’ve ever noticed someone snoring on a plane.
Early arrival … 2:00. A fellow traveler with whom I shared the table pointed out his new grandson when the bus pulled up. Love my MegaBus!
Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, art heists, art, history, The Art Blab:
Artifacts. TheArtBlab.com. Jan. 24. Thurs.
Alright. I have a good one for you today. This is the sensational art heist where the crooks get away will millions of dollars worth of art.
It was the morning of March 18,1990, at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It was St. Patricks day. Two police officers showed up to the museum in response to a disturbance call. The two cops recognized the guard at the front desk from a warrant that was out on him. They had him call the other guard to the front while they arrested the first. The cops arrested the second guard as well. Then they took the two to the basement, gaged them, and cuffed them to pipes. The two cops were then free to roam the museum freely taking whatever they pleased. Really? That’s it? It only took me a few sentences to lay out the plan and execution of one of the largest art heists ever. The thieves “casually” escaped with thirteen pieces in all. The paintings they stole read like an art history book.
Rembrandt, two paintings and an etching. Vermeer, one painting. Manet, one painting. Flink, one painting. 5 gouache drawings by Degas. One bronze eagle statue. One bronze beaker from the Shang Dynasty, 1200-1100bc. The estimated value of the loss is around 500 million.
The thieves were never caught and the art never found. There is still a 5 million dollar reward for info that leads to the return of the art. Good luck!
BINGO, Lenbrook, kith/kin, sleep, wellness: Wednesday night Bingo at Lenbrook. And despite the fact that my mom fell asleep during the first coverall BINGO game, she won it due to her beloved daughters … teamwork.
“Sleep is part of what I call the ‘wellness triangle,’ along with fitness and nutrition,” says Nancy Rothstein, a sleep expert who consults with corporations on the topic. “And when you’re exhausted, you’re less likely to exercise and less likely to eat well. That’s why I put sleep at the top of the triangle.”
Lenbrook, Ladies of Lenbrook, congealed salad: I totally enjoy my time in the place where they still have a “congealed salad of the day.” As always the company is delightful and am looking forward to a day with my mom and dinner and. BINGO with the Ladies of Lenbrook.
weather, global warming, kith/kin: E wins the high temp award today … Boulder – 64. About the same in Davidson, Vail , Charlotte and Atlanta. A little colder in Louisville!
LOL:
This made us smile today. Window washers at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh dressed up as super heroes ♥ http://ow.ly/h1Kuy
NYC, travel, The High Line, El Anatsui, Big Onion Walking Tours, Greenwich Village: Heading to NYC next week … Suggestions? I want to walk the High Line Park and find a labyrinth … Other than that I’m pretty open.
The High Line is a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. It is owned by the City of New York, and maintained and operated by Friends of the High Line. Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line’s preservation and transformation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition. It is now the non-profit conservancy working with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation to make sure the High Line is maintained as an extraordinary public space for all visitors to enjoy. In addition to overseeing maintenance, operations, and public programming for the park, Friends of the High Line works to raise the essential private funds to support more than 90 percent of the park’s annual operating budget, and to advocate for the preservation and transformation of the High Line at the Rail Yards, the third and final section of the historic structure, which runs between West 30th and West 34th Streets.
High Line Art presents Nigeria-based artist El Anatsui’s Broken Bridge II, the largest outdoor installation ever by the artist. A monumental sculpture made of pressed tin and mirrors, the work will hang on an outdoor wall next to the High Line, between West 21st and West 22nd Streets, and will be visible from the park and the street below it. Broken Bridge II will be on view from November 21, 2012 through Summer 2013.
Stroll through one of New York’s most picturesque neighborhoods as we explore the unique and legendary home to artists, writers and radicals. Our walk has a special emphasis on the history and architecture of the Village. Stops could include: Jefferson Market Courthouse, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the “hanging elm”, the Stonewall Inn, and sites associated with Stanford White, Aaron Burr, Edith Wharton, John Sloan, Evelyn Nesbit, Jimi Hendrix, and Tom Paine.
Charlotte, free history program 2/5/13, Charlotte On The Cheap:
Interested in learning more about our local history? Here’s a free program on Tuesday, February 5th, 2013. Read on for more details.
The Mecklenburg Historical Association Docents invite visitors who are interested in learning about and sharing history to attend their upcoming program on Tuesday, February 5th, in the Fellowship Hall of Sugaw Creek Presbyterian Church, West Sugar Creek Road at North Tryon Street. Refreshments are available at 9:30 a.m. The business meeting will follow at 10:00, with the program beginning at 11:00.
The program will be presented by Ann and Jim Williams, local historians and reenactors, who have conducted extensive research on three generations of the Davidson family, who made their home at Rural Hill in Huntersville. From a vast array of primary family papers, family stories, wills, estate papers, court records, etc. they have produced a unified narrative. The title of the program is “It Ain’t Necessarily So – Rewriting Site History Using Primary Sources.” This study revealed much about antebellum Mecklenburg County, including some surprises. Slides will illustrate the talk.
Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, Rand Paul, Benghazi Hearings, Politics, truth: I try to form educated opinions on political controversies. But I don’t believe either side anymore. What is the truth?
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) criticized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing over the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
“I’m glad that you’re accepting responsibility,” said Paul. “I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that.”
“Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it’s inexcusable,” he said, referencing Clinton’s comments that she had not read all of the documentation surrounding the attack.
“I think we can understand you’re not reading every cable,” Paul said. He added that he didn’t suspect Clinton of “bad motives” but said that it was a “failure of leadership.”
Clinton responded, “I am the Secretary of State. And the [Accountability Review Board] made very clear that the level of responsibility for the failures that they outlined was set at the Assistant Secretary level and below.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) rebuked Paul in the next exchange. “If some people on this committee want to call this tragedy the worst since 9/11, it misunderstands the nature of 4000 plus Americans lost in the War in Iraq under false pretenses.”
Two hundred years after the publication of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s most famous (and arguably her best) novel is as popular as ever. The descriptions of England in Pride and Prejudice and her other novels continue to provide a quintessential image of the country for locals and visitors alike. To celebrate this special anniversary we’ve ‘taken a turn’ around places associated with Austen herself and with her characters which can still be enjoyed today.
Join us as we take a step back in time visiting the haunts of Jane Austen. On this journey we’ll visit the homes and estates of Jane Austen and her family, including Godmersham Park, Chawton House Library, and Chawton Cottage (where Jane Austen wrote her mature masterpieces); tour the seaside towns of Lyme Regis, Ramsgate, and Portsmouth; walk The Cobb; explore Oxford and Winchester; then on to Bath to participate in the beginning of the world famous Jane Austen Festival!
With 2012 now behind us, we’ve tallied up the Top 12 National Geographic Expeditions of the year based on the number of travelers who joined us, and the list spans the gamut from Alaska to Antarctica, and from wildlife adventures to photography workshops.
MegaBus, Atlanta: MegaBus today. Charlotte-Atlanta Bus waited for the DC bus … for folks returning from the inauguration. So the bus was crowded, but folks were sleepy. I am sitting backwards which is not my favorite. On the road again …
Man never took off shield from face, sunglasses, hat, coat or gloves … I have been watching too many Dexters … My sister thinks he is the invisible man ..
Atlanta, V, Varsity: Lunch! Thinking inside the box today! — with Mary-Stewart Lindsey at The Varsity Drive-In.
art, fine art, public art, charity art: Art created for charity v. Fine art … Which would you prefer in your home ? Buckhead v. Minotaur?
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man’s best friend, spirituality:
business, sleep, sleep therapy, health issues: I’m a big believer in sleep.
Turns out a good night’s rest is good for business.
One-third of American workers aren’t sleeping enough to function at peak levels, and that chronic exhaustion is costing billions of dollars in lost productivity, according to researchers from Harvard Medical School.
Sleep-deprived American workers ultimately cost their employers $63 billion in lost productivity, according to a 2011 Harvard Medical School study. Lauren Weber joins The News Hub with a look at some companies making a business case for a better-rested workforce. Photo: Reuters.
Managers at a growing number of companies, among them Procter & Gamble Co., PG +1.06% and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., GS -0.27% are waking up to the problem, investing in programs from sleep-hygiene courses to melatonin-regulating lighting to help employees improve their slumber.
Jane Austen is one of the most popular and important novelists that England has ever produced. This site will coordinate all the details of all the events which are being held in 2013 to celebrate Pride and Prejudice’s bi-centenary, wherever they are being held in the world.
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