Hellzapoppin'!

Last night I couldn't sleep. Tossed and turned. Regretted my dumb evening nap and even dumber caffeinated tea. On the plus side, I discovered lots of interesting things on the internet! For one, doesn't this show seem like it would have been a fun evening back in 1938? At the time, it was the longest-running Broadway musical. Description below, courtesy of Wikipedia. 

A comedy hodgepodge full of sight gags and slapstick, the show was continually rewritten throughout its run to remain topical; its opening scene was Hitler speaking in a Yiddish accent. A circus atmosphere prevailed, with dwarfs, clowns, trained pigeons, and audience participation adding to the merriment. The sketches were a "smorgasbord of explode-the-fourth-wall nuttiness: comedy songs; skits abandoned partway through; cameos by audience stooges; an absurdist raffle; and in a trademark stunt, a man who wandered through the theater hawking an ever-larger potted tree." 

Hurricane Irene

Despite generous offers from friends and guilt-inducing offers from family (Mom: "So, you're just going to be alone in your apartment? With no power? Just in the dark, alone, inside your apartment? Alone?"),  last night I opted to wait out the storm at my place in Astoria. Even though I was by myself, through the wonder of the internet, I toasted some Brooklyn friends from afar:

I also listened to WFUV, drank ginger tea, wore faux hipster glasses, did some unfortunate watercoloring, and hung out in my kitchen, which I rarely do. There was something about the hurricane quarantine that inspired me to disrupt my usual routine in a really nice way.

Black Tie Beach 2011

This past Saturday, I participated in Improv Everywhere's Black Tie Beach 2011. They e-mailed us our location on Friday afternoon (Rockaway Beach, which I semi-suspected) and instructed us to wear our finest thrift-store formalwear and not to tell onlookers why were doing so. Mission: accepted!

Sarah and Gayle were my co-agents, and after a delicious bagel brunch, we headed down to Far Rockaway. As we walked to the beach, we were stopped by an elderly woman who was overwhelmed with how beautiful we looked (her words, but she was right!). She insisted on taking a picture of us, told us to have fun and to stay sober. It was 3:45 pm, but good advice nonetheless.

The beach was full of fancy folk and regular beach-goers and it was a gorgeous day. We played in the water, strolled romantically along the beach, ate watermelon, and acted elusive when people questioned our motives. "We just thought we'd get dressed up for the beach!" Sarah said. (She was much better at improvising than I was).

This is the second Improv Everywhere event that I've participated in, and I'm always so overjoyed by the diversity and friendliness in the participants. I saw whole families with little children, all dressed up in their party clothes, messing around in the water. The events really do generate a sense of playfulness and joy that is so important - to coin a Chinese phrase - "in our daily lives."

Below are some photos taken by a mixture of IE photographers and my dear friend Sarah. Bonsoir!

Bi-Borough Journey

Prologue: On Friday, I took myself on a trip to Coney Island, via my bicycle. It was a great ride, and I've listed some highlights (and lowlights) below. 

A: Getting from Astoria to Brooklyn is annoying and not particularly scenic, except for a very short jaunt through Long Island City. You have to make your way through the Queensboro Plaza area, which is full of noise and cars and malfunctioning traffic signals.

B: But then you sail over the Pulaski Bridge and you are suddenly in Greenpoint! I fall in love with Greenpoint every time I'm there. It's so charming and quiet and nice and funky. But as I rode through Greenpoint and down towards northern Williamsburg, I noticed a disturbing amount of girls in dainty summer dresses, riding bikes in the street without helmets. I know it doesn't go with your outfit, but it protects your brain!

C: Southern Williamsburg: big industrial areas and Hasidic Jews.

D: I always forget how quaint/lovely/delightful Park Slope is. When I happen upon more money, I'm definitely taking myself out for dinner in a cafe or something.

E: Hitting Ocean Parkway was the most relaxing part of the ride. Except for having to frequently stop at the crosswalks, it's the urban biker's dream! There is a bike path separated from pedestrians by a railing and separated from cars by a wide grassy embankment.

F: I ventured out too far into the crosswalk at Avenue P and a car zoomed by, splashing a ton of dirty water all over me. The jogger next to me was as surprised as I was. It could have been a perfect "meet cute," but I don't think we were each other's types.

G: I was .8 miles from the water when I switched gears on my bike and it locked up, preventing me from pedaling forward or backward. O Frustration! I sat on the sidewalk with the bike and attempted to fix it, but truthfully I had no idea what the gears should look like normally, so I didn't get very far. I walked the rest of the way, but I was annoyed that I had gotten so close, and yet not close enough to feel as though I could truthfully say I biked all the way to Coney Island. Realistically, I can say I biked to the Brighton Beach area and that's good enough for me.

Epilogue: I proceeded to lay out in the sun, splash around in the water, watch people on the Polar Express ride, and eat an ice cream cone. Perfect day. 

Subway

Sleep No More

In elementary school, my friend Ashley and I found an old suitcase in my parents' attic. My mom said she didn't know where it came from, and so somehow we decided that it belonged to an old mental patient of my mother's, named Jenny. There were a few strange drawings and documents in the suitcase and we spent hours building mysteries around them. I remember writing in my diary something along the lines of, "WE FOUND OUT NEW THINGS ABOUT JENNY TODAY!!!!!!" I believed in these stories with every fiber of my being and they brought me great pleasure.

I thought about suitcases and attics and mysteries last week when I went with my lovely friend Gayle to see Sleep No More, which I can only really describe as a "production." Or, like a Shakespearean haunted house. It was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it. But the experience was bittersweet because I realized how much work it takes, at the ripe old age of 25, to wholly activate my imagination. During the exploration of the old hotel, I wanted to make believe that I had stumbled upon it myself and was now parsing through some dark, gothic past. And yet, I found myself analyzing my struggle to fully engage ("This will make for a great blog post!"). Alas. My 9 year old self could have dove right in at 100%, whereas I peaked at around 15%.

But it did bring me back to the days of being young and desperate for real seances, graveyards, secret trapdoors, mirrors, diaries, and adventure. With a touch of Edward Gorey for good measure.

The Great Stumble-Upon

Once in a while, I mentally flirt with the idea of moving to Los Angeles, even though it's a city that I never ever in a billion years thought I'd be interested in living in. But sometimes it's winter in New York City and it's cold and my skin is all pale and sallow from lack of sun and I think about Ed Ruscha and Charles Bukowski and John Darnielle's lyrics in The Sunset Tree, and all of a sudden Southern California seems very romantic in a burnt-out, Hollywood sense.

And then there are days like last Thursday, when I can't fathom leaving New York.

Gayle and I spent the late afternoon and evening weaving around Greenpoint, with no goal in mind, just exploring the neighborhood in the nice spring weather. We stumbled upon a really wonderful bookstore, where I purchased Under the Banner of Heaven, and we meandered through the "historic" district (although the informational signage was covered in graffiti). We passed kids playing on quaint, narrow streets under leafy trees, and other kids playing in sad, littered playgrounds near the docks. We bought sauerkraut-and-mushroom pierogis from a Polish restaurant and ate them on the steps of a church. We browsed through cheap DVDs at an independent video store and bonded with the store owner about Boy A and what an underrated movie it is. Then we met up with some friends and went to a free neighborhood concert at a Mexican restaurant, where the lead singer of Wheatus (and Greenpoint resident) played "Teenage Dirtbag" for a bunch of hipsters.

It was great and almost completely unplanned. And that seems to be the beauty of living in New York: the ability to walk around a neighborhood and stumble upon all the weird and wonderful gems it has to offer. It's also what worries me about a city like Los Angeles. When you have to drive to your destination, do you ever see any of the places in between? Is there any unplanned wanderings? Any getting lost on foot?

Current or former residents of L.A., is the stumble-upon possible in your city? Or do you find your metropolitan thrills in other ways?

(Now I'm done with my Carrie Bradshaw-esque musings, I promise.)

So Bad It's Good

I recently saw two epic films, Troll 2 and The Room, both which have become cult classics due to their overall terribleness. For films like these to achieve a certain type of campy fame, there has to be an earnestness on the part of the director, a sense of megalomania, the notion that their work will stand next to Citizen Kane and The Godfather in the annals of film history.

The backstories to both films are great (Italian crew who can't communicate with the cast? Bizarre director who raised money through imported leather jackets?), but even without a great backstory, the films stand on their own. Two short reviews below.

TROLL 2

I watched this with my friend Matt, with whom I share a love for bad movies. He is the one who introduced me to this scene from Mac and Me, a blatant rip-off of E.T. He is the one who would entertain us in college by reading aloud reviews of Duncan Checks In on IMDB.com. He also just generally makes me laugh, to the point of embarrassment.

So in this grand tradition, we settled in to watch Troll 2, on Matt's recommendation, and it turned out to be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I swear, I did not stop laughing for that entire film. It is so utterly ridiculous, with a plot that makes no sense, and awful acting, and monster masks that look as though I painted them. (Like, fifteen years ago. In fifth grade art class.) Without giving anything away, I'll just say that there is a lot of green food, an incredible love scene involving corn, and not a single troll anywhere in the film.

GRADE: A+

THE ROOM

I saw The Room in a completely different environment: a post-midnight screening downtown with a bunch of friends and co-workers. I had never been to the Village East Cinema before and although it's fairly unassuming on the outside, the interior is a gorgeously renovated Yiddish theater.

After waiting in line for quite some time, we all clutched our plastic spoons and piled in with our fellow hipsters at around 12:45. From the moment the film started, people did not stop yelling. I guess if I had seen the film before, I might have appreciated it, but it meant I missed a great deal of the dialogue. To me, terrible dialogue is what makes a terrible movie terrible! Granted, you need no words to understand the softly-lit, disgusting soft-core sex scenes, or the completely unnecessary chroma-keyed San Francisco skyline, or the randomness of a bunch of dudes playing football in their tuxedos. But it would have been nice to at least hear some key lines.

Also, a lot of the yelling was directed towards "Lisa," one of the main characters. While she is supposed to be a manipulative and awful person, there was something disconcerting about being in a darkened room while a faceless mass of guys yelled things like, "Whore! Slut! Bitch!" at the screen. I know she's the worst ("You are tearing me apart, Lisa!") but for me, it took some of the fun out of it. Whereas Troll 2 is just pure, unadulterated silliness, The Room is just a few yards away from some terrible student films I had to sit through. (Including my own.)

GRADE: B

Hail Satan!

A few weeks ago, on a very dark, cold, rainy night, I found an old paperback of Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin at the free book shelf at the Education Alliance. Rosemary's Baby is one of my all-time favorite movies and the novel proved to be no disappointment. It's pretty much an exact blueprint for the film, down to the most minute of details. And so while I think Roman Polanski did an excellent job directing the film, many of the dark and wonderful touches that I formerly attributed to him (Laura-Louise with the magnifying glass, the Japanese photographer, "I won't have an abortion!") were actually Mr. Levin's creation. Polanski barely changed a thing.

It confirmed for me what I heard many years ago at University of Michigan, at a lecture given by Chuck Palahniuk. I had a bunch of friends who read his books religiously and I tagged along for fun. (Personally, I think he's a good writer, but once you've read one Palahniuk book, you've read them all.) That night, he read some revolting stories from Stranger Than Fiction, but the one that I found most compelling was an essay entitled "Dear Mr. Levin."

The piece is a personal letter to Ira Levin and while time has dulled some of the initial wonder I felt while hearing it, the key points are still very resonant. Some excerpts:

Your books take some of the thorniest issues in our culture and charm us into facing the problem. What's creepy is, these are issues the American public is years away from confronting, but in each one - in each book - you ready us for a battle you seem to see coming. And, so far, you're always right.

In Rosemary's Baby, published in 1967, the battle is over a woman's right to control her body. She's controlled by her religion, her husband, by her male best friend, by her male obstetrician. All this you got people to read - to pay money to read - years before the feminist health-care movement. The Boston Women's Health Cooperative. Our Bodies, Ourselves. And consciousness-raising groups where women would sit around with a speculum and flashlight and look at changes in each other's cervix.

Mr. Levin, your skill to tell an important, threatening story through a metaphor, maybe it comes from your experience writing for television's "golden age," shows like Lights Out and The United States Steel Hour. This was television in the 1950s and early '60s, when most issues had to be masked or disguised to avoid offending a conservative audience and the even more conservative sponsors of a program. In a time before "transgressive fiction," such as The Monkey Wrench Gang, American Psycho, and Trainspotting, where a writer could stand on a soap box and shout about a social issue, your writing career started in this era, in the most public form of writing, when the mask, the metaphor, the disguise was everything.

In addition to what Palahniuk touches on, what I find so striking about Levin's work is the mundaneness of evil, right down Minnie Castavet's ill-fitting green toreador pants. And while I can't articulate exactly why, I think it's brilliant.

So if there's a stormy night coming up, I plan on watching Rosemary's Baby for the hundredth time, vodka blushes in hand.

Mr. Castevet came in, holding in both hands a small tray on which four cocktail glasses ran over with clear pink liquid. “Mr. Woodhouse? A Vodka Blush. Have you ever tasted one? They’re very popular in Australia." He took the final glass and raised it to Rosemary and Guy. “To our guests,” he said. “Welcome to our home.”

The Vodka Blushes were tart and very good.

VODKA BLUSH RECIPE

1. Chill a martini glass by filling with ice. Set aside.

2. Fill the cocktail shaker 2/3 full of ice. Add 2 1/2 ounces vodka, 3/4 ounce freshly squeezed and strained lime juice and a dash or two of grenadine.

3. Empty the martini glass and dispose of the ice. Shake the cocktail, and strain into the chilled glass. This will make one serving.

Grandma's House: A Tour

With my new schedule, I have Mondays off, so recently I visited my parents and borrowed their car to see my grandmother. Here are a few snapshots.

Even though we usually go out for a huge amount of deli food at Buddy's, she always feels the need to feed me when we return to her house. My favorite things to eat there are sliced green apples and refrigerated Chips Ahoy cookies.

When I was growing up, I thought this ceramic sculpture was the most beautiful thing in the world.

A photograph of two sisters: Her biological mother (left) and the mother who raised her (right).

A letter to my great-grandfather after he emigrated to America. It reads:

Dear Mr. Glass -

I had the pleasure of presiding at the term of Court which admitted you to the privileges and obligations of American citizenship and I want to drop you this little line of congratulations and good wishes.

I know from the report of the Government and from my observation of you that the country has gained a good and loyal citizen.

I am enclosing a copy of the oath of allegiance, which is recited in our schools, and I hope you will put it in a conspicuous place, because we will all be better citizens through knowing it by hear and reciting it frequently.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Frank S. Gannon, Jr.

And a picture of my baby cousin Sam, for good measure.

The Most Dangerous Place

There has been a lot of talk recently about the billboard that went up (and then quickly down) in Soho. One of the best comments I've read came from one of the readers at Sociological Images

Bea Strike 2:03 pm on February 28, 2011 | # | Reply

Interesting.

I’d think the most dangerous place for an African American child would be in in our nation’s inner cities and small towns in which their parents are under and unemployed so the children are subsequently undernourished and mal-nutritioned, under-educated, and poorly housed while suffering health neglect that ultimately leads to, among other things, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.

I’d think the most dangerous place for an African American child is a state that is hostile to their equal human rights but wants to use the specific tragedies and travesties of African American history to distort and distract from that fact.

But, that’s what I get for thinking.

(My) Top Ten 30 Rock Episodes: PART ONE

It takes me a long time to get into new things, which is why I didn't try sushi until I was 20 and why I still haven't see There Will Be Blood. However, once I like something, I usually devour it with unmatched enthusiasm, bordering on obsession, and will eat/watch/read it over and over again until something else catches my eye. At this point, I've seen every 30 Rock episode multiple times, and I thought it would be fun to make a top ten list. I've chosen a few from each season, and I welcome fervent debate!

1. BLIND DATE (SEASON 1)

It was tricky finding favorites in Season 1, because although I like the season quite a bit, the show was still finding its "cruising rhythm," as my lovely French co-worker would say. The jokes still followed a more sitcom-like structure, whereas later the show became more fast-paced and witty.

In this episode, we see the beginnings of Jack meddling with Liz's personal life, leading to a blind date with a woman named Gretchen Thomas. Liz's storyline is mostly centered around whether she can imagine herself to be in a romantic relationship with a woman, but one of my favorite parts of the episode concerns Kenneth, who ends up in a high-stakes poker match with Jack. The personalities/mysteries of all the minor characters really begin to shine in this episode.

FAVORITE LINES

Liz: "And even though I'm not into the sex stuff, if it helps you, I would let you...do stuff...to me."
Gretchen: "I can't be around you anymore. Bye, Liz."

Tracy: "This round, Texas Doozy. Face cards are wild, threes are jinxed, fives are twos."

Jack: "In five years we'll all either be working for him...or be dead by his hand."

2. CLEVELAND (SEASON 1)

What hotspot's got the hippest groove? Where all the real gone-daddies move? Dig that sweet Cuyahoga glow!

There is no way any list could not include this episode. It contains some of my favorite 30 Rock-isms ("By the hammer of Thor!" "Just a whirl of wind" "Paris was, to borrow a phrase, bonkers") and the musical sequence of Cleveland was just great. (So great, in fact, that it seemed to have spawned an unfunny-seeming sitcom, Hot in Cleveland. Full disclosure: I've never seen it.)

Also, Emily Mortimer is terrific as British-but-probably faking it, hollow-boned gallery owner, Phoebe.

FAVORITE LINES

Tracy: I'm going to have so much money, my grandkids are going to play lacrosse. Lacrosse, Liz Lemon!

Jenna: Wow, how Sex and the City are we right now? I'm Samantha, you're Charlotte, and you're the lady at home who watches it.

Floyd: If the whole world moved to their favorite vacation spots, then the whole world would live in Hawaii and Italy and Cleveland.

3. ROSEMARY'S BABY (SEASON 2)

This episode is a favorite of mine because it is a combination of topics that 30 Rock typically does well: New York, feminism, yuppies (do people still use that word?), liberal hypocrisy, silliness, and anything that involves Grizz and Dot Com. The episode also features one of my favorite cameos. Carrie Fisher is pitch-perfect as the radical aging former comedy writer.

FAVORITE LINES

Liz: You are my heroine. And by heroine, I mean "lady hero." I don't mean I want to inject you and listen to jazz.

Rosemary: God, I haven't been in that building in so long. Does everyone still do blow in Joe Garagiola's office?
Liz: Which one is blow? Is that cocaine?

Liz: What neighborhood is this?
Rosemary: They call it "Little Chechnya." It's so gritty and real. More murders per capita than Detroit. Try not to write when you're living here!

Rosemary: I predict, opening weekend: a million dollars.

Jack: Never follow a hippie to a second location.

Blizzard 2K10

I had a great time in the recent Snowpocalypse. It began on Sunday in Flushing, where Hanna and I met up for Chinese food. The snow began falling harder and harder as we drank our noodle soups.



My sneakers were soaked by the time I made it back to the subway. (And my bag was a few ounces heavier after the purchase of a Chinese propaganda film called Troubled Laughter). I made it back to my apartment, got cozy in my bed, and watched All About Eve, which I had never seen.

Then I woke up and walked to work, which was quite an adventure. I thought I could just take my usual route, but most of it was neither plowed nor shoveled. Everyone was just tromping through, making deep footsteps, and looking confused and zombie-like. It was fun.

Since I can walk to work, and I live near both the N and R (which were running decently by the time I needed them), I didn't feel the inconvenience as much as others might have. But I have to agree that the boroughs really got short shrift. For example:

My street: Monday morning

My street: Tuesday night

It took them forever to plow my block, and even now, it will be difficult for many of the cars to get out without doing some major shoveling on the street itself. The trains and buses were so delayed on Monday that one of my co-workers began his journey to the museum at 5:30 in the morning and didn't arrive until 1 in the afternoon. While I know a blizzard is a rare occurrence, we did have fair warning and you'd think the city could respond in a better fashion. Didn't Bloomberg learn anything from Lindsay's Snowstorm?

Bros Icing Bros

Last week, my dad and I went to see a Rangers vs. Islanders game at Madison Square Garden. It was the first time I'd ever been to Madison Square Garden, and my first hockey game. It was truly awesome. Hockey is the kind of sport I like. It's fast-moving, beautiful to watch, easy to understand, and violent. The players got into lots of fights and it was all very entertaining.


The fans at the game were extremely devoted, and the experience reminded me of a National Film Board of Canada animated short film, called The Sweater. It's a really nice story, but I think Roche Carrier's voice-over is what does it for me. I love the way he pronounces everything, especially "Maurice Richard." Ah, to be a young Quebecer!

Movin' Out

So, it turns out that if you do a Google image search for "dream home" you get a really gruesome-looking Chinese horror film. According to the internet, it's a violent and grisly critique of the high prices of Hong Kong real estate.

Awesome.

The reason I even conducted the search in the first place was to celebrate my new Astoria apartment! I officially got the keys today from the nice-but-frazzled tenant who was moving out, and the friendly super, who speaks very little English. The next step is painting the walls a fun color and getting furniture and attempting some semblance of design. All my design-minded friends, I will be soliciting advice from you in the coming weeks...

The Hunt Part II

The Hunt is over!


While I'm too superstitious to really feel as though it's happening, last week I signed a lease and forked over some cash, and I am going to be moving to Astoria in early December! While it will be hard to leave the home-cooked meals and the fall air of the suburbs, it will feel good to not be living with my parents by my 25th birthday.

Halloween 2010

Gayle (Jukebox from 1997), Me (Norma Desmond), Allison (Nicky from Big Love)

The Hunt

If you have talked to me in the last few months, you know I am looking for an apartment. It turns out that looking on one's own is exhausting, especially since I'm working five days a week and commuting from the 'burbs. It also doesn't help that I'm a) super picky and b) horribly lazy.

All this searching can't help but remind me of one of my favorite New York Times features in the Real Estate section: "The Hunt." I read it every week. It follows someone and their search for the perfect home, whether that be a brownstone in Park Slope or a co-op in Flushing or a penthouse on Central Park West or a shared apartment in Williamsburg. Everyone's stories and needs are different and it makes for a good read. I half-jokingly said I would e-mail The Hunt and see if they would follow me on my journey, but I figured it would be easier to document my Goldilocks-type search on the blog. So here goes, for the realty-minded.

1.
Two-bedroom apartment in Prospect Heights
Pros: It had high ceilings and one wall was painted a funky color. One of the bedrooms was huge. Decent location.
Cons: Pretty expensive for such a small space. The other bedroom was teeny-tiny: the current resident was only using it for storage. The kitchen was weird and facing the bedrooms. And to tip it off, the broker said the apartment complex's management company might reject me for not having a roommate yet, and not having a higher salary.

2.
One-bedroom apartment in Astoria.
Pros: Huge! Nice-sized living room and kitchen. Really small bedroom, but I mean, I'm just sleeping in there. Pretty close to the Astoria Boulevard N/Q stop. I would have my own place without sacrificing space.
Cons: Stairways/entryway smelled really strongly of cigarette smoke. The floors were all carpeted, which was meh. (What can I say? My last two apartments had wood floors. I'm spoiled.) The house was pretty much underneath the highway, which felt sketchy. And ultimately, it was on the upper limits of my price range.

3.
Studio apartment in Astoria
Pros: Cheap. Wood floors. Really good location.
Cons: They called it a "walk-in" but it was a basement apartment. There were windows, but I still felt depressed being in there. Maybe because the guy who lived there hadn't done much but strew his stuff everywhere, but still. I want to feel happy in my place, even if it's small.


4.
One-"bedroom" apartment in Prospect Heights
Pros: Great location and really close to my friends. Huge! Painted walls! Real kitchen.
Cons: It was in a converted brownstone-type thing and none of the rooms were bedrooms. They were just weird rooms. I was totally into that, but then I noticed that they had built the bathroom out of some cheap plywood-type material, the apartment was filthy, and I could hear the neighbors like they were standing next to me. I'm not particularly sensitive to sound, but the walls were way too thin.

So that's where I am right now. I haven't included all the times that I've taken the subway somewhere only to find out the place has been rented or the broker doesn't have the key or the person isn't answering their phone. It's starting to feel like I'm going on a date once a week, knowing full well that the dude is going to stand me up. I'll keep you updated, loyal readers. And hopefully someday be able to have you over for a teeny-tiny housewarming party.