Friday, January 27, 2012
How To Bring A Bike On The New York City Subway
1. Don't.
2. If you have to ride the subway, everyone else comes before you. It's known as yielding.
3. Is it rush hour? Don't bring your bike on the subway.
4. "But I just have to ride the train during rush hour!" Then only outbound in the morning, and inbound in the evening. Otherwise, you're an incorrigible imp. And you'll probably get a ticket.
5. At the turnstile, signal the MTA attendant in the booth by waving your arms wildly and gesturing to the gate (is there no booth at the entrance? Go the hell back upstairs and enter at a booth station entrance), swipe your Metrocard, spin the turnstile arm, walk over to the emergency entrance (if you didn't muck it up, the booth attendant will have unlocked it), walk through.
6. Don't ever, ever, ever carry your bike over a turnstile. READ MORE
Examining Jon Stewart's Humble Late Night Beginnings
The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)
In terms of modern poltical satire, there’s no better source than the double-punch of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. From their recent skewereing of the SuperPAC system through creating their own to their massive Washington DC Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, over the years The Daily Show and its spin-off, have had deep impacts on the modern popular culture. But where did it begin? Let’s take a look an episode of the prequel to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show: The Jon Stewart Show.
In 1992, MTV was in that transitional period that everyone likes to complain about, in which the 24-hour music video channel was beginning to introduce non-music video programming. First among these were The Real World, Liquid Telelvision, and then a little thing called You Wrote It, You Watch It , hosted by a young stand up named Jon Stewart, in which sketch ideas submitted by viewers were acted out by members of The State. It was cancelled after one season, but the following year, in 1993, The Jon Stewart Show premiered as a nightly talk show and became the network’s second highest rated program, right behind Beavis and Butt-Head. READ MORE
Gucci Mane, "North Pole"
The lyrics are Christmas themed. The beat and the video, more appropriate for Halloween. But Gucci Mane is Gucci Mane, so he'll put it out late January. Sort of in time for Valentine's Day.
How They Got There: A Conversation With Chiropractor Bill Walsh
Bill Walsh will openly admit that his many former bosses were justified when they fired him. He was "arrogantly unfit," and is not shy about telling tales of his, shall we say, youthful misadventures. Eventually, Walsh righted himself, joined a recovery program, went to chiropractic school, and started a practice in Park Slope. He's been treating people there for the past 25 years.
At Plaza Center for the Healing Arts, Walsh combines his talent for manipulating the spine with an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy, the body's relationship to itself, and a homeopath's understanding of drugless cures. He enables his patients to make themselves better. "My job is to place myself in people's rearview mirror, getting ever smaller as they drive away," he says.
In an exam room of the brownstone where he has his practice, Walsh talked about missteps, recovery and the art of getting there eventually.
How did you get here, sitting in a room where bottles filled with homeopathic remedies line the walls and a chiropractic table sits between us?
I had a desire to be a doctor from my earliest days. I was sidetracked academically and when I got back on track, one of the people who helped me was a physician. He was eager to help me help myself. It was he who suggested that if I wanted the kind of practice that was a drugless healing profession—one that would fill needs of people in recovery—I shouldn't go to medical school. He said osteopathy or chiropractic school. READ MORE
Science meets alcohol! I believe I need to leave early today to do a little "research." @ 2:40 pm
"There Isn’t Anything Inherently Unfeminine About Science Fiction"
In 1962, when “A Wrinkle in Time,” after 26 rejections, was acquired by John Farrar at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, science fiction by women and aimed at female readers was a rarity. The genre was thought to be down-market and not up to the standards of children’s literature — the stuff of pulp and comic books for errant schoolboys. Even today, girls and grown women are not generally fans. Half of 18- to 24-year-old men say that science fiction is their favorite type of book, compared with only one-fourth of young women.... “A Wrinkle in Time,” the first in a trilogy that was later extended to include two more books, also defied the norm. Though a major crossover success with boys as well (with more than 10 million copies sold to date), the book has especially won over young girls. And it usually reaches them at a particularly pivotal moment of pre-adolescence when they are actively seeking to define themselves, their ambitions and place in the world.
—Just blow past the 2/3rds of this piece that consist of weird gender social-essentialism, because the rest of it is true. (Also, you know, Hunger Games?)
Video Premiere: Eleanor Friedberger's "Heaven"
Eleanor Friedberger's delicious album "Last Summer" now has a video for the song "Heaven," directed by Scott Jacobson. Hooray! Please to enjoy. (It's very gorgeous: put on your headphones and go full-screen with me!)
In other Eleanor news: she is guest-starring on the Portlandia Live tour, beginning February 19th in Philly. But before that, she's doing her very own West Coast tour, starting February 2nd, wending her way north from San Diego to Seattle. (More info here, and yes, that includes SF and Portland.)
Hey, while we are here: would you like to download her live EP, for free, simply in exchange for going on her mailing list? I certainly would and indeed just have done so. Merge Records would love to make that happen for you, right here. READ MORE
"Now a sixth grader's vocabulary includes the phrase money shot. And a lot of other terms for male ejaculate that sound like verbs from the Nickelodeon channel."
—Dude. You are not Ron Jeremy. @ 1:20 pm
Your 2012 Baby Name Guide: Puritan Edition
"There is the most distinct evidence that during the latter portion of Elizabeth’s reign, the whole of James’s reign, and great part of a Charles’s reign … there prevailed, amongst a certain class of English religionists, a practice of baptizing children by scriptural phrases, pious ejaculations, or godly admonitions."
–Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, by Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley, pub. 1888
1. Helpless Henley
2. Repent Durant
3. Wrestling Brewster
4. Restore Weeks
5. Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White READ MORE
"A friend once told me that he thought — knew, actually — that Alan Ruck's character Cameron was obviously fucking Ferris' girlfriend behind his back. Next time you see the move, pay close attention to Cameron and Sloane. You'll never unsee it." @ 12:40 pm
Egyptian Deities Ate Well
"Ancient Egyptians placed food in the mouths or stomachs of animal mummies, suggesting that animals were treated equally to humans in death and perhaps also in life. In this case the mummies were sacred ibis birds In a study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the findings are the first known examples of food placed directly in animal mummies."
—Here's an interesting, animal-lover's perspective on the ancient practice of stuffing birds with food before killing them and mummifying them as sacrificial offerings. I would think they were perhaps making fois gras. Surely Thoth, the god of wisdom, would have had a sophisticated palate.
"'There were three-legged lambs, one-eyed, but not six-legged, bisexual one. The lamb eats well, but moves with difficulty.'" There is video. @ 12:00 pm
A Drynuary Diary: Week Four, The Wettening
John Ore: Hey, Jolie! We're in the home stretch now, only a couple of days to go and we can close the books on another successful January of not drinking. A little solidarity and we can get through this final weekend.
Jolie Kerr: HA HA, SUCKER YOU FORGOT: I GET TO DRINK TONIGHT. WOOO!
John: [long, unblinking stare] You know I'm happy for you. I really am. Like when Andy Dufresne busted out of Shawshank. You're happy for him, you miss him, and you hope to join him one day. But you're also a little scared for him out there, facing the world alone. You don't want him to end up like Brooks.
Jolie: You know? I'm happy for me too. Leaping lizards, that martini is going to be soooooo good! Oh but is that rubbing it in? Am I being ungracious? Yes? Well perhaps you should have thought of that when you denied me my O'Doul's, ya big jerk! (Actually we've got a free spot at the Luger's table tonight since Jill bailed on us to go to Iceland. I just say...)
John: I guess now's not the best time to reveal that after reading last week's installment my wife reminded me that she had O'Doul's last Drynuary?
Jolie: I'd be mad except that, oh right, I GET TO DRINK TONIGHT, WOOO! Since this is the end of the road for me (WOOO!) I propose that we take a look back, work ourselves into an introspective lather and then drink our faces off, because WOOO! So how are you feeling? What have you learned? Can you explain to me once and for all why we do this terrible thing to ourselves? READ MORE
Got an hour? Sure ya do! Put on the headphones and Leonard Cohen's 1988 "Austin City Limits" appearance. @ 11:10 am
Voodoo Heals, D'Angelo Returns
"The religion is like a glue. We attract each other. If a drum is beating, and someone hears it, the next thing you know, this place is packed."
—Brooklyn Voodoo priestess Marie Saintil talks to the BBC about how her religion has helped Haitians recover from last year's earthquake. Coincidentally, probably, the beloved and troubled singer D'Angelo played a concert in the Swedish capitol of Stockholm. It was his first performance in ten years. And he is apparently preparing a new album, which would be his first since 2000's Soulquarian masterpiece, Voodoo.
