Pick a century, for cryin’ out loud

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Sister #2 teaches at a college in Upstate New York in the heart of the Mennonite community. She was in the local coffee shop doing some work when this grand old dame walked in, opened her laptop bag, plugged in, booted up and started surfing the internet.

Isn’t that contrary to their belief system? I know they’re big advocates of modest dress and quiet lifestyles, so what’s up with the laptop?

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I just stumbled across this quote from Andy Warhol about Coca-Cola:

A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it and you know it.

Isn’t that beautiful? I swear, if I worked in the marketing department for Coke I’d create an entire ad campaign around that.

Random NYC photos: while you were still asleep

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Early morning in New York. This is 42nd Street looking east from Broadway at 6:30, a short time after the sun came up. While the rest of you were dreaming of sugar plums, I was on my way into the grind. Look at the way the colors of the sky are reflected in the Bank of America building on the left.

This is about a half block further east. Note the ornamental neon lights in the spire of the Chrysler Building are still on. Click on it for a better look.

As a homage to The Daily Smoke, I’m including this black and white pic of Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building.

Dat ‘ole black theater magic

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Here’s some opening dialog that I lifted from a New York Times fluff piece about the excellent new production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones that’s about to open at the Irish Rep.

“Who dare whistle dat way in my palace? Who dare wake up de emperor? I’ll git the hide frayled off some o’ you niggers sho’!”

Imagine 1:15 minutes of that! It’s a ballsy show that’s presented exactly as O’Neill wrote it and I think these guys are going to take some heat for the manner in which the main character is portrayed. They throw every racial stereotype that blacks have been fighting against for decades onto the stage. But if you can hang with it, you’re in for a hell of a ride.

The show is a hallucinatory nightmare. The sequences of the Emperor, Brutas Jones, escaping through the jungle are eerily realized. Kudos to the stage, sound and lighting guys. They even employ creepy puppets to depict a dead man, a slave auction and various jungle horrors. John Douglas Thompson is excellent as the Emperor. Lotsa luck to him.

I’m no O’Neill scholar but this seems a very unlikely play for him to write. I think it was his first success.

My Satanic child

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

3-Year Old Daughter got her hands on a pair of scissors and decided that now would be as good a time as any to start on the road that will lead her to a spot on Project Runway.

The first step in dress design is, of course, cutting cloth. And since they look like bolts of unspooled fabric, why not start on our priceless dining room curtains? Just look at those lines! They’re perfect. Here’s the left curtain:

And for the sake of uniformity, she also tailored the right.

Mrs. Wife put her on the phone:

Me: Did you cut our curtains?

3-YOD: Yes, Daddy! Wait ’til you see it!

I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.

Is the Kandinsky retrospective any good?

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

How am I going to explain how great this exhibit is without sounding like a pretentious jerk? Art exhibit reviews almost always leave me cold. They’re awful things to read. Art is subjective and open to personal interpretation. Reading some “expert” from the Times spew his opinion strikes me as a waste of time.

Having said that, I have to be honest and report that the media is right about the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim. It’s a blockbuster and it knocked me flat on my ass. Way better than the lame-ass Monet water lilies exhibit currently at MoMA. I walked in knowing just a little bit about Kandinsky and walked out a big fan. His work is far more eclectic than I thought it was.

I took two artists with me; Artiste Florenza and Sister #2. Both attended prestigious art institutions. Do you know what I did? I laid back a few steps and listened to the two of them discuss the work. It was an education. I came across this beauty and thought it was an interesting composition.

Then I heard Sister #2 remark, “That’s a nice profile.” I was standing right in front of the damn thing and never saw it! Always bring someone smarter than you.

Part of the exhibit is a healthy selection of works on paper that are just as strong as the works on canvas. It’s like two exhibits in one. I had no idea just how great this guy was.

It’s not a question of if I’ll return for another visit but, rather, how many times I can get there before it closes. If you’re in town between now and January 10th, you should make a point to go. It’s fantastic.

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Take a look at these two Eurotrash visitors I found outside the museum. He’s wearing one of those expensive European pinstripe business suits (click to view). A few moments prior to this shot they were sucking face and slobbering over each other. Then, Pink Tie’s phone rang and he stopped to take a call. I’m no expert at reading body language, but I’d say she feels a bit put out by the coitus interruptus.