Something that I did not know, the original New Yorker cat is called the Eustace Tilley.
the original
I fall in love with the New Yorker on a daily basis via David Denby’s writing, surprise visits from David Sedaris and of course their cartoons. They are having a contest of sorts for people to craft their own Eustace Tilley.
You can read about the Eustace here, or enter or check out past winners, two of which are below.
You Heard It Here First!
The story begins with my roommate. She spent a night in New York City celebrating her mother’s birthday this past Friday night. After an evening of dinner and a show, she stayed with her sister and her sister’s girlfriend. If her sister Molly was not feeling so ill she might have joined in on this adventure of Santa con, but instead she stayed home while Sam started to get dressed early on Saturday morning. Surprised by Sam getting dressed unusually early after a night of late night drinking. But when she emerged, Sam was dressed as Santa.
Santa con (refresh and get a new picture every time!) started in San Francisco with as an anti-commercial form of “guerrilla street theater” mixed with “pranksterism.” (Wikipedia, here.) Since its beginning in 1994, originally called “Santarchy”, it has since spawned different events and adventures in different forms all over the world. The one that Sam participated in was all throughout New York City. There were meeting points in each borough to start a massive Santa pub crawl. It was reported that 5,000 (or more?!) Santas took place.
As soon as I heard about this, I had to share it with you.
As the Internet escorts me from Sunday Night to early Monday morning, my cyber-trekkings have lead me to the website for the Ithaca Beer Co. I am graced with images of Brew Fest cups and ‘Zillas being bottled when I see Events posted by the brewery.
On the last Friday of every month, the Beer Co. hauls a firkin – an antiquated term for a cask used to hold liquids, about eleven gallons – to Korova. Since the last Friday of the month is Christmas, the Beer Co. is bringing the quasi-keg over this Friday, the 18th.
If you don’t know what Korova is, it’s the seemingly nameless bar near Taste of Thai and Subway in the Commons. It’s usually got some cool chalkboard artwork hanging outside, and some bangin’ specials – $3 Guinness, yes please!
So if you’re still in town, get to Korova and you’ll be able to tell your folks that you drank from a fricken’ firkin!
5 – 7 pm
cheers
To all those faithful Jewish readers out there, happy Chanukkah. Remember, just because they don’t give us school days off to celebrate doesn’t make it any less legit than Christmas. So, if you’re feeling nostalgic for that one year your family actually followed through on lighting the candles for eight days, but you don’t feel like paying 20 bucks for a menorah at Wegman’s because you’re a cheap (Jewish) college student, I present to you an affordable alternative to celebrating the least important Jewish holiday this side of Tu BiSh’vat (look it up). Aside from the relatively low cost of the Chanukkah candles, it’s made up entirely of items already present in our house.
This one’s for you, God.
beernorah
...ahhh its love at first sight!
Recently I have discovered how I can define my favorite bands. I mean it can be as simple as the fact that I like them best out of all the music that’s out there, but if you put some time into how it is personally definitive to you, you can have some fun. I’ve realized that my favorite bands are comprised of musicians that have gotten me to look and listen to music in an entirely new way. New ways that I could never have imagined without these minds. And I know we call it a top five, but right now I am stuck with just four. One of which is the Velvet Underground.
I’ve never discovered a band from an era that I thought I knew so well so late in the game. The Velvet Undeground is responsible for a lot of musical genres, movements, experimentation and adventures. People call them the first punk band. Their earlier records feature John Cale’s electric Viola droning in and out in sync with the guitars. They can appeal to everyone if you keep your mind open enough and give them a chance. I knew about them forever because they always ranked in the “…greatest of all time” lists. But I think it came at a later point when I was mentally ready for it. It was then that I realized how Lou Reed’s lyrics are like poetry.
The Velvets are not a mainstream band- and well, they are underground. Which sometimes makes their, I can’t find a better word here, memorabilia very hard to find and usually more expensive than you ever expect it to be. When I just saw this, I was excited at the thought of learning more about a band that only really loving fans seem to know anything about. But when I saw the price at $300, I was disappointed.
Of course coming from the New York Times Magazine, the Style Magazine nonetheless, it chronicles alternate record covers, ticket stubs, lyric notes, film stills and letters. It is a big book I hope to get my hands on soon. I have also recently discovered a love for cultural histories of New York City- and if you didn’t know, the Velvet Underground are a big contributor to that.
–Now, I read the biography of Andy Warhol and a lot of people associate this band with him. And I would like to set readers straight that he did fund and design their first imfamous record cover. He is also why Nico was included in the first place. She was a commodity (one of Warhol’s earliest muses)- she had to sing solo, or along with Reed, and be featured in the record of Warhol was not going to fund anything. This is how she won her American fame. She was already a popular German singer-songwriter.
Even though their music can be depressing, I truly, really love this band because the Velvets are the ultimate poets of the 60s. It is euphoric. Maybe that is due to Lou Reeds addiction to heroin, but I like to look beyond that. I recommend going for The Velvet Underground, the self titled record. Or even Loaded which is a lot of people’s favorites, including mine. Once you understand those, you can get the full effect of The Velvet Underground & Nico. One of the most musically layered and complicated records that exists. I now understand why it always made those “….greatest of all time” lists.
Do something new this break. New to your brain. Try out the velvets. I hope they don’t disappoint you. (Also, let me know how it goes.)
Crossword puzzles, in my eyes, have always been folded and stacked next to my father’s side of the bed. He’d fall asleep filling one out every night. Sometimes working on several at a time, they’d remain in the pile until they were completed. I’d be eating Honey Nut Cheerios at the kitchen table, eyes-half awake before grade school, and he’d be holding a cup of coffee, waving a completed puzzle in my face: “Ya see that? It’s done!”
I had never understood his joy until now. I’ve done it. I completed a crossword puzzle!
done and done!
I know what you’re thinking; “you’re a senior in college, and you’ve never done a crossword puzzle before. Big Whoop.”
Well it is a big whoop. I’ve always dabbled in the Ithacan crossword puzzle. You ever take Cultural Anthropology with David Turkon? Was it on Tuesday/Thursday? Yeah, I bet your Thursday session wasn’t so boring because of pg. 24 in the positive publication. Filling out as many crossword clues in the seventy-five minute period is what got me through that semester.
So what did I learn from this experience? What did I gain from doing this crossword puzzle? A few things…
1. Jeans go with a “TEE” shirt.
2. “YTW” is code for Yield To Worst – like in a rocket-launch mishap.
3. A ‘Water Pipe’ is not a “BONG” as I originally jotted down. It’s a “MAIN.”
4. Humidity causes “MILDEW.”
5. If no globe is available to you, an “ATLAS” will suffice.
Let’s see if I can’t do next week’s CWP.
There has been a lot of press out there about the end of the 00′s. I’m not too sure how to pronounce that, but that is what they’re calling it. Whoever they are. It is the first decade of the new millennium and I can say that it is the first decade that my conscious adult self can remember all of. We were all there for the 1990s, but I missed out on a lot of it, because well- I was a child. However, in this decade a lot has happened, which means there is a lot to say.
The other day I found this gem of a list. Well, its a whole bunch of lists. If you know me you know that I love ranking favorites, the best, the worst, and well I love any sort of list basically. This WHOLE SERIES of lists (!!!) comes from Time Magazine. Including the best magazine covers, the best tee shirt slogans, the best movies of the decade (note the top three are animated- what does that say?/that’s pretty fricken awesome.) There is a whole bunch to chose from. There is nothing more fun than talking about hits and misses and cultural phenomenons- who doesn’t love the I Love the…. series on Vh1??
Then there is also this that i stumbled upon. It is incredibly morbid, yet fascinating. And just because it is depressing does not mean that we can ignore it. Also released from Time Magazine, it is their latest cover story. The Decade From Hell. It even has a photo essay of the top ten worst moments of the decade. Now I was debating whether or not I wanted to share this with all of you…but I decided it cannot be overlooked. Plus there is some beautiful photographs in there.
And since I want to end on a not so distressing and bleak moment, this is a story from the NYTimes last month, a debate of what we should call this decade that is coming to a close. The Decade from Hell seems like a little too much. I was thinking more of “The Age of Anxiety.” What do you think?
HOLY COW. As I edit this, I just stumbled upon this coming Sunday’s New York Times Magazine cover story. Its all about this year’s ideas and innovations. I love it. Enjoy.
Well, Christmas is in two weeks, or Chanukkah (Sokol, Jordan, Adam)… Naturally, a new slew of products are on the market, just in time for the holidays.
Some of these products which I’ve seen advertised are awesome – they really seem like they’d make life easier. I was watching the Food Network last night, and Pyrex was commercials were aplenty. They’ve made a hybrid cheese-grater/measuring cup, so you know how much cheese you have for your ‘dillas or whatever it is you’re making.
thacant approves this product
Pyrex has also released a hybrid whisk/bowl scraper. So when you’re trying to mix a bunch of stuff together, you can make sure you get it all, and that no un-mixed products linger on the side of the bowl. Check it:
also, thacant-approved
Craftsman tool company also has a new slew of products out for the holidays. Because men love building shit. There’s a single tool with sixteen commonly-used ratchets all in one, with no need to change ratchet heads.
There’s a drill with a “delicate” setting – so leave it on regular power when you’re drilling huge pieces of wood to other huge pieces of wood, but when you have to put a shelf in the bathroom for your wife, switch it to low.
But what confounds me the most about the Craftsman company is how bold they are – their audacity. Craftsman went ahead and reinvented the hammer. That’s right. The hammer.
Remember Jesus? His foster-father, Joseph, was a carpenter. He used hammers. This was over two-thousand years ago. Now, as we’re rounding out the last year of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Craftsman tells us we’ve been doing the hammer wrong.
wrong
right
Anyways. Merry Christmas, Chappy Hanaka, Kwanzaa.
29 years ago today John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman outside of the Dakota Hotel on the upper west side of New York City. If you have not made it to Strawberry Fields, I recommend it. When my senior class in high school got the week off to go to Disney in Florida, I did the unnatural thing and stayed home. My dad and I spent one of those days in the city and seeing Strawberry Fields was one of our activities we wanted to do together. While we were there, we saw countless tourists just like ourselves, a man propose to his girlfriend and two homeless men who looked like they had experienced the full effect of the 1960s. Its a cool place to visit. Maybe next year I’ll make it on December 8th for the 30th anniversary. But I figured it would be cool to go at 40 and especially 50 years- which we will definitely see the day of.
Its a story among us Beatle fans that is kind of common sense once you reach a certain age. It is as memorable in comparison to ask ‘where were you when JFK was shot?’ Lennon and Yoko had returned from the recording studio. He was in the midst of making Double Fantasy. Released three weeks before his murder, its his best selling solo album and won him the 1981 Grammy for Record of the Year. Mark David Chapman was posing as a fan, trying to get his autograph and then he shot him. The story is unclear to me as to why MDC wanted to murder one of the most peaceful and beloved human beings. A movie was made about Chapman were Jared Leto played him and Lindsay Lohan is in it too. But that’s besides the point. The point is, don’t see this movie. I’d rather you read the Wikipedia article on him if anything.
Last weekend on the Breakfast with the Beatles show I did a feature of all John Lennon solo work and his best Beatles stuff. It was really fun, actually and very well received by my normal listeners. Although he is not my favorite Beatle (George is, of course) I still have a hard time recognizing his extreme amount of talent. After I read John by Cynthia Lennon, his first wife, I kind of lost respect for him because of how he broke Cynthia’s heart and was an absent father letting his family fall to pieces as he fell for this artist, Yoko, and continued on with life as if nothing existed before her. Cynthia even came home from a weekend away with girlfriends to find them sitting on their living room floor in their his & hers bathrobes. But every once and a while someone will remind me of why he was everyone’s everyone. This time I think it was explained the best.
The beauty about John Lennon as an artist is that from the beginning when you sat him down to interview him, or just to talk whether or not it was an audience of five or five million, he always poured his heart out. He treated everyone like his brother, being honest and pleasant just, literally, trying to make the world a better place. That is what made Lennon so likable. It is what continues to make him so lovable. Despite his many, many, faults and crazy life, he was a genius. But he was also a tortured soul. People of every generation will continue to fall in love with him and his music. Lennon just wanted to tell the truth and sometimes it really pissed people off (like when he said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ- who can argue with that….?!) But the truth is the best policy, maybe not all the time. But it was for him. Lennon wanted truth, peace and love. I think we can give it to him.
Also if you are interested there is an exhibit going on at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex Museum in NYC commemorating his life in New York City- his favorite part of his life and his favorite city to be in. It opened this May and I’m quite sure it goes through next month. Every time I look for an end date, I can’t seem to find one. So check it out. Also, if you have not yet seen A Hard Day’s Night- watch it. Funnier than anything: it is English comedy before Monty Python. Also, Help! is also tremendously funny.
"are you listening to me, Lennon??"
So if you haven’t yet today, play a little Lennon. Do something he would do. Happy December 8th.
