The City Reliquary

Ah, yes the City Reliquary is quaint, alright, but it is also relatively charming to look at and informative. From the chipped stones collected from buildings of New York past to the displays of Statue of Liberty memorabilia, like a beer bottle with our little lady in it, this small storefront historical society off the Lorimer “L” is worth checking out. Although the non-for-profit is only open on the weekends, it's a pretty fantastic place. Local neighbor volunteers run the 370 Metropolitan Avenue stop and are surprisingly pleasant to chat with. Somehow the year-old-museum, which originally was located in a smaller venue on Grand Street, managed to get its civic minded hands on the old sign from the dearly missed 2nd Avenue Deli. The piece of Lower East Side lore now hangs in the back room parallel to a projected film screen. Dave, a young worker at the museum, said a local by chance caught construction workers removing the sign and held on to it. But besides the reminder of the once delicious matzo ball soup, a fairly interesting Bicycle-centric gallery showing there currently entitled "Bicycle Fetish". Check it out.

Watch My Shit Drop, Son.

Go watch tha' shit drop! The effeminate-sounding rapper Jawz loves to stalk women on the Brooklyn-bound "F" train. I like your red beret. It's totally cool. Just watch my album drop!

Genius, The Man Really Is

Go to Midnite-ish* Movies, you fool! #26 of the series is about to commence next Wednesday nite at 7:30 p.m. with "My Fucked Up Childhood Pt. 2" featuring queer cinema's "Dotty Gets Spanked" and Gregg Araki's teendom movie, "Mysterious Skin". 22-year-old NYU grad Adam Burnett currates the fabulous, digitally-projected double feature out on the "L" Morgan Stop. It's free, too. The movie night that ranges in theme from "Abusive and Abrasive Cinema" to "Viseral Filth", is showcased in the Ad Hoc Art Gallery just hops away from the subway. The nights seem to draw a small crowd, but it's a pleasant experience. There's beer offered for a small fee, too. Waters' "Pink Flamingos" is supposedly making a comeback to the petite theatre, Adam said after talking with a girl who walked in on tonight's showing of "Gerry". "I was shocked she actually stayed and watched the whole movie," he said of the street-girl and Gus Van Sant's long-winded homage to death.

Midnite-ish* Movies--49 Bogart Street. 1 Block from the "L" Morgan Stop

Poiret: King of Fashion

Oh, Paul Poiret, you dashing up-from-the-bilge-water Parisian. You may have wooed the doe-eyed Sarah Bernhardt with your Asian-inspired Surrealist, Cubist clothing and shouted, "I am an artist, not a dressmaker," but you are still in the Met's basement Costume Institute gallery. Triste, really. The clothing designer who mirrored the progression of Stravinsky and influenced the greats, including Ms. Chanel, is being honored at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a exhibit entitled "Poiret: King of Fashion" which opened May 9 and will run until early August. It is quite magnificent, really. Especially the "Empire" fashion section.

No Facebook For You, My Comendants!

The U.S. Military announced today that soldiers will no longer be able to use MySpace, YouTube and 11 other popular sites that will be blocked in a memo from General BB Bell. Supposedly them troops are using just too much bandwith and slowing down the system with all their communications to loved ones and friends. "Security" is only a second concern he claims. Too bad they can't all share the happy pictorial memories of dusty Iraq now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6655153.stm

Inconsistancy? No!

Dear Readers, if there are any?,
Sorry about the lack of posting in this past week. From the descent of the snot-monster to my ongoing battle with a bitchy-realtor, my aloofness has grown three-fold, I tell you, in merely a week. I promise to treat you better.
Scouts Honor,
Sarah Conway

Hannah, Tisch sophomore, dies at 20 - News

Hannah, Tisch sophomore, dies at 20 - News

Grey Gardens, the movie.

So, first came the cult classic status. Then the Christina Ebersole's Broadway musical of the same title. But what's next for Jackie O's tattered, fabulous and eccentric cat-lovin' cousins, Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier Beale? Supposedly production on a film version of Grey Gardens is in the works for a start next year. But who's to play the dames that occupied the Hampton, 14-room shingled estate that one time brother duo Albert and David Maysles capture with that calm hand held camera of theirs in 1975? But cherub-cheeked Drew Barrymore playing Little Edie and Jessica Lange playing her older, canned-paté loving mother of course. Micheal Sucsy, the Georgetown alumni and award-winning producer of the short "Katherine", is writting and directing the feature film. Supposedly handsome, Irish-Jew Al Maysels and crew all took a drive out to Suffolk County to see the restored estate recently. Let's just hope that the film just wont be another damned lacking remake.

Over The River We Go.

The married-artist duo, Christo and Jeanne-Claude of NYC's "The Gates", will begin construction on their temporary work of art, "Over The River" next February, Jeanne-Claude announced at a film premier this past Friday. Standing astage in a quirky fushia and orange knee-length shirt dress with the tackiest fabric-diamonds these suspicious eyes have ever seen, Jeanne-Claude yuked it up with documentarian Albert Maysles and his team. It was 80-year-old Maysle's Tribeca Film Festival premier for "The Gates," a documentary about Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project that went through three N.Y.C mayors before succeeding, but many of the night's questions skipped over the world's greatest cinematographer and creator of "Grey Gardens" and "Salesman" and jumped right to the subject of the Colorado's Arkansas River installation that should be completed in fall 2011. Jeanne-Claude also stated that the river elevated project will be made of transparent material and that rafters will be able to still do their craft under the 7 miles that the piece will span of the 40-mile-long river. For two weeks only, as per usual.

"Baby-Cakes Has a Bum Ankle"

Joceyln Gunnar, the private dancer and recluse artist of our hearts, had an accident today. The Chicago native visited the posh West Village Saint Vincent's Hospital this afternoon after injuring herself. Whether a taxi was taken over the Williamsburg Bridge with her reported "hottie" Armenian boy-toy Mark is unknown at the moment. Gunnar, clad in mostly likely her dancing spandex, was going on a jog near the Bedford L stop after exiting the apartment of Armenian Mark, a Billy-burg renaissance man, music producer and musician. Reportedly, she turned around and felt her ankle roll. "Mark yelled my name and I turned around and probably broke my ankle. It hurt," she said this morning over the phone in an interview. The recent Gallatin-accepted student plans on recovering in the next few weeks, but has yet to return to her own apartment this afternoon. How the "bum-ankle" will affect her and Sarah Conway's apartment move in the next month still is shrouded in mystery. Please send flowers and pre-cooked Annie's with chickpeas to their Crooklyn home for support.

I Smashed His Face. He Got Wise.

Lovely Spring is in the air. Bicyclers and priers beware! What did I see riding past the Hell's Angels outpost today at 77 East 3rd Street? But a pair of songbirds: a gnarly, longhaired Harley aficionado kissing his saddle-bagged, red head bride. Lovely, really. Who knew that Hunter S. Thompson's favorite bunch of invaders, the ones who "are tough, mean and potentially dangerous as a pack of wild boar," knew such love? Despite the lore of this place, the infamous stop that Sandy Frazier Alexander started in ‘69 seems relatively tame these days in the gentrified East Village. Alexander, an East Coast biker and something of a rival to the West's Sonny Barger, knew how to kick it in the orgiastic day, I hear. So did Ken Kesey with his woods parties that The Angels and Ginsberg use to frequent. But, anyway despite the whining sirens, helicopters and attempted siege on the club this past late January after the beating of that dumb Brooklyn bitch who jumped on one of their bikes, things seem calmer these days at the building ridden with security cameras. Thompson, who got riot-beaten himself by the crew, did say, "Many of their 'assault victims' are people who have seen too many Western movies; they are victims of the John Wayne complex, which causes them to start swinging the moment they sense any insult." RIP H.S.T, RIP.

Natalie Portman is saving the world, one college student at a time.

The Village Banking Campaign, an initiative started by the Foundation for International Community Assistance, was announced today on the 10th floor of NYU's Student Kimmel Center overlooking Washington Square Park. FINCA is a micro-banking system that has been around for the past 10 years giving small loans ranging from 10 to 100 dollars to members of the world's poor in Eurasia, Latin America and Africa. AIG, a micro-insurance company also announced its donation of 1.5 million dollars to the bank with a heart. A stunning Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah and Natalie Portman spoke about the start of a new FICA program in Jordan, in which Her Majesty stated, "I know there are resourceful men and woman across the Middle East that are waiting for someone to give them this opportunity." The charismatic royal and fashion icon, which looked delightful in all white with a delicious tortoise belt, was hounded by a WWD reporter, but what else could be expected. A fellow Jordanian journalist said that even the most conservative Muslim women adore the 36-year-old Rania and follow what new "Birkin" bag she has going on. Natalie Portman, FINCA’s Ambassador of Hope, also came to inspire "hope" into NYU students, although her pushy, stout Press Assistant refused to let the NYU media speak with the wobbly-ankled, verbose actress in the name of good will. Portman, who claimed she learned how to be a woman and a human being from Her Majesty, yucked it up with the Columbia University khaki-wearers instead. She also boasted of her MySpace page that features video diaries filmed during her new documentary with director Juan Carlos Rulfo about workers in Mexico at www.myspace.com/villagebanking . The inspiring event also littered the room with hopeful statistics on the success of the program, like the fact that they plan to help over 100 million poor families and are repaid by nearly all of their "high-risk" loan recipients. The sit-down speech and lunch event was "closed" to NYU students though. Nora Toiv, the former President of the NYU College Democrats and who plans to work for Hillary Clinton's campaign next year, hand picked "only the most socially conscious students" to attend the event. Only in the most democratic method, of course. But the event was a success with bankers, socialites, and Russia oil-money types floating around. For students interested in donating time overseas for micro-financing visit: www.villagebanking.com.

"The Bagel Store: Do I Look F*cking Corporate to You"

The Bagel Store branch at 754 Metropolitan Avenue in Billy-burg makes a fine breakfast for all movers and shakers. Yes, there is always the original store that opened nearly 6-years-ago near the Bedford stop, but this smaller, younger shop farther down on the construction truck heavy avenue is better. Why? Maybe it's the constant Reggaeton or that one worker made a clever penis-pun to my Midwestern mother there a few months back. No idea, really. Regardless, the hand-rolled Brooklyn knots that are boiled then baked in flavors that range from a traditional salt to savory French toast trump any bagel from the other boroughs. Besides, they always have festive creations like candy-coated peppermint at Christmas and a bagel of the day. All walks of life flock there for the French toast bagel, though. Alex, one of the neighborhood counter boys, agrees with the crowds. "My favorite is the French toast cause it's cool and it has a sweet taste. I like the sweet bagels,” he said. They usually run out of o.j. and The New York Times, but the bagels, baileys and such make up for it.

The Plastic Infinite

Urban barn raising, y'all. The creative capers behind last spring's AquaDoom water festival featuring Japanther were at it again last night at Washington Square Park in a visual display of the Downtown community entitled "The Plastic Infinite". The concept was hometown Amish, but the final product came out to be a living, breathing structure resembling a cocoon that glowed at night. Sure, barns may not be common in Lower Manhattan but the tetrahedron structure, insulated by donated plastic bags sewn together, dominated the Southern quadrant of the park catching passersbys' eyes. While NYU's Program Board originally intended to have the structure reign over the center fountain, the community board rejected the idea. Congratushitlations, bureaucracy at its finest. The plans were created by fish and chipper English-Pakistani artist, Haque, whose designs have graced other non-American parts of the world like Japan and Italy. From the adorable two little girls who ran around the structure to Andy, the Puerto-Rican homeless man who specializes in Astrological signs, to the mass of Downtown mamas, nannies and the huddles of hipster NYU flesh, the art insulation was a success.