The first feature by Susan Seidelman (Desperately Seeking Susan, et al.) plays like a time capsule of downtown NYC in the moment after punk broke and people were still picking up the pieces. Feisty but talentless Wren (Susan Berman) uses what few social graces she has to ingratiate herself with various downtown types - an artist who lives in his ( Read more... )

I got handed a slew of major assignments last week, so to celebrate a bit before disappearing into the salt mine I headed into New York City. ( Read more... )

A quick closet-cleaning of interesting stuff garnered over the past month.

• New York City apartment buildings freecycle, and create new community spaces in the process.
• A new book coming out called The Jazz Loft Project, documenting Weegee's time at 821 Sixth Avenue, where endless jam sessions took place. Very excited about this one, as it's a ( Read more... )

I spent Saturday with my folks in Jersey, celebrating the birthday of a family friend, and then from there swung quickly through Manhattan to test out a theory I had about whether or not Google Street View was any good at helping me find curbside parking in a given neighborhood. The short answer: Yes, but bring change anyway, just in case. (Free ( Read more... )

Some bits 'n pieces from around the way.

• Criterion has a new box set from their Eclipse line, the Hiroshi Shimizu set. All date from the pre-WWII era and sound like the kind of thing that would make a nice counter-complement to my Tokyo Inferno reading -- they're gentle, lyrical tales, although they do feature some of the same sorts of characters ( Read more... )

Or, How I Spent My Time At Comic-Con 2009, NYC. (The title's a double pun that most any NY-based comics/manga/pop-culture fan will spot immediately.)
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I've posted a longish summary of Comic-Con, from the "business / industry" side of things, over at AMN.

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Back home from Comic-Con NY '09. Wonderful time was had by all, me especially. I'll post some more details later as I'm (predictably) rather worn out right now.

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Two book-related pieces in the Times caught my eye. One was about a local bookstore owner facing eviction, but he was able to soften the blow a bit by having a gallery exhibition of his paintings. The other deals with the curious things one finds between the pages of used books -- everything from money and correspondence to food and dead insects. ( Read more... )