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Younger listeners who are curious about what the early-to-mid ’80s sounded like could do worse than to just play this song over and over. Anyway, happy birthday to Yvette Marie Stevens/Chaka Adunne Aduffe Hodarhi Karifi. In the great history of disco Hot Stuff, Alice Echols wrote:

Get the book, there’s plenty more about how Chaka Khan changed everything.

“For 1,000 square feet [of outdoor space], typically you need to be ready to spend $100,000, minimum.”
 — Are YOU ready?

New York City media has finally given up, overall, on providing hand-selected calendars of events. Time Out New York recently abandoned its “things to do today” call-outs. The Village Voice, while stuffed with listings, is not really that useful; it’s crowded with ongoing events and the like. The New Yorker’s Goings On app is… pretty hit or miss per section. (Their “Above and Beyond” and “Readings” selection is pretty miserable, and that’s where the good stuff in town is.) I think everyone has discovered that it’s just not worth their energy or resources. The last “things to do” resource is the weekly Nonsense NYC email, and that’s a labor of love that is full of amazing things I would never, ever attend. Should we throw in the towel too? Or should someone swoop in and save New York from itself?

Hello, would you like to buy something weird? Hammer Time is our guide to things that are for sale in New York City: fantastic, consequential and freakishly grotesque archival treasures that appear in public for just a brief moment, most likely never to be seen again.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung was never one to shy away from controversy. When Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie endorsed Mein Kampf without his approval, Jung attempted to eradicate pro-Nazi influence from his publication.1 He parted ways with Sigmund Freud, who once called Jung “his adopted eldest son, his crown prince and successor,” over differing theories on the unconscious. And, as the sex scenes so dispassionately depicted in A Dangerous Method suggested, he was comfortable with disregarding sexual and professional taboos, including bondage, spanking, and a liaison with a patient-turned-student.2

For his final act, Jung cast an analytical eye on UFOs.

Swann Auction Galleries has unearthed a 1957 missive Jung sent to New Republic editor Gilbert A. Harrison on the paranormal phenomena, in which he anticipates a publication that would prove to be his last. “Being rather old, I have to economise my energies,” Jung concludes, politely declining what he vaguely refers to as Harrison’s “proposal.” The editor presumably solicited an article on UFOs; Jung had already committed to writing a forthcoming book on the subject. Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies would be published two years after the letter was sent, which was also two years before he died. 3

Jung’s approach to UFOs was binary. Although “the psychological aspect is so impressive, that one almost must regret that UFOs seem to be real after all,” his extensive research led him to conclude there was “no certainty about their very nature.” He reserved judgment as to whether or not the preponderance of UFO sightings meant that spacecrafts had actually visited Earth, manned or operated by extraterrestrial beings from other planets. Jung found “overwhelming material pointing to their legendary or mythological aspect,” suggesting the very concept of UFOs left an indelible mark on the human psyche. In Flying Saucers, Jung wrote:

In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets…. Even people who would never have thought that a religious problem could be a serious matter that concerned them personally are beginning to ask themselves fundamental questions. Under these circumstances it would not be at all surprising if those sections of the community who ask themselves nothing were visited by visions,’ by a widespread myth seriously believed in by some and rejected as absurd by others.

Swann is auctioning the letter this week, which it estimates to be worth $2,000–3,000.00, as part of its three-day “Autographs” auction in New York City.

1 Jung appointed Carl Alfred Meier of Switzerland as the new managing editor of Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie, and continued to acknowledge the professional contributions of Jewish doctors. His ability to prevent anti-Semitism was greatly lessened in the succeeding years. He resigned as president at the beginning of World War II. (Nonetheless, Jung is still regularly accused of being a Nazi.)

2 A Dangerous Method was marketed as a “historical film,” but it was based on a screenplay adapted from the 1993 novel by John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabrina Spielrein. Nevertheless, Spielrein was indeed treated by Jung at the Burghölzli mental hospital near Zürich; he later became her medical dissertation advisor. It is believed they engaged in an affair that violated professional ethics. Whether they did so in such a clinical fashion, as depicted in the movie, is debatable, and certainly disappointed critics.

3 Princeton University Press reprinted a translated edition of Flying Saucers in 1979.

Alexis Coe is now a writer living in San Francisco, but not long ago, she was a research curator at the New York Public Library. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Slate, The Millions, and other publications. Alexis holds an MA in history. Follow her. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, 104 East 25th Street.

★★★★ Downriver, the Jersey side was almost gone in the bright morning haze. A pneumatic hammer on an excavator chattered like a monstrous bird courting. The air in the hallway was swampy. On the cross street, a man was up a ladder cleaning the metal sides of the lettering over the entrance to the music center. A group passed on Broadway wearing kilts, men and women both. There would be no sign of the forecast showers. Downtown, trapeze dresses were definitely announcing the season and themselves as a thing of it. Eventually the office air conditioner forced an escape to the roof, where sun warmed the dark shirt fabric and breeze pulled at it. Heat seeped from the metal railing into stiffened fingers. The iced coffee tap indoors had already run dry.

The American Cancer Society was founded in New York City on May 22, 1913. (That’s a hundred years ago today.) Back then it was called the American Society for the Control of Cancer. It’s funny to think of “celebrating” in terms of a disease like cancer. And it sure would be better if there was never any need for an American Cancer Society in the first place. But here we are, left saying “fuck cancer” anytime someone like David Rakoff or Adam Yauch dies way, way too young, and so to the people who are working so hard to make it be so that we don’t have to say that so often, here’s wishing them a very productive next hundred years. Actually, here’s hoping that it’s less than a hundred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbRFcP–I6Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u63dayKcOc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvN7BOAQn9I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMTKb-pgxGI

You know, if someone is going to try to pull the “cold soup” scam on you they may as well do the honorable thing and add some booze to it.

I think Springtime Positivity has finally caught up with me now that the Springtime Pollen of Negativity has spent itself and released me from its Deadly Grip, because I feel like my mind has cleared and I am Excited about stuff for the first time in a long time since last time. Firstly, more than the new Star Trek movie or the Iron Man or Great Gatsby or Before Midnight or anything like that, moviewise, I am officially one million percent hyper-mega-ultra-jacked about the new Fast & Furious movie, with cars. Check out this picture I have included, which reveals part of the movie — not Spoilering anything, in my opinion — and I bet this moment of cinema is but a teensy-weensy slice of a fragment of the film at neither its Fastest nor most Furious.

This movie isn’t going to be the most blockbusterish movie of the Summer Blockbusters, this is just another Fast & Furious, just another episode of people driving cars around and over and through stuff and stealing shit, and it’s gonna be great. I love movies about stealing shit, don’t you? Stealing is fun! In movies, I would like to state for the record.

I was going to go and see an “Advance Press Screening” of the shiny new Fast & Furious 6 movie at a Theater Near Me, and “review” it, but I don’t have to see it in advance. I would rather go see this at the drive-ins anyway, because I am fortunate enough to live within driving distance (obeying all local road signs and ordinances) of the majestic and historic Bengies drive-in, and I bet they will be running this bad boy Coming Soon, vroom-vroom.

If you have an opportunity to see a movie at a drive-in, you should check it out, because it is America, if you are in favor of that kind of thing, and a fresh serving of Fast & Furious is perfect for the drive-ins, because there’s a lot of ambient noise and you lose a lotta dialogue at the drive-ins, but generally dialogue is not mission-critical to typical enjoyment of a Fast & Furious.

I am just going to review this movie-still I am showing you, because it is worth a thousand words of pulse-pounding, nitro-burning Action and Thrills that will take you to the edge of your seat and beyond to the Snack Bar, and possibly to the rest room if you need it.

Again, I don’t believe I am Spoilering anything here, but this image depicts an individual person — I will not review who exactly because I kinda can’t tell, but also I don’t care — jumping toward a cool-ass blue car with extra headlights, which means it is a Customized car or possibly Foreign. It is a car that will go fast! I have seen all the movies in the Fast & Furious milieu except for Tokyo Drift, which, I dunno, it didn’t seem very exciting, in terms of Fastness or Furiousity, so I recused.

With that Disclaimer, here is my Super-Xxcited to see Fast & Furious 6 List of Fast & Furious Movies, taken from the Web-pages of IMDb.com, without commentary, already in progress, in order:

• The Fast & The Furious (2001)

• 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

• Fast & Furious (2009)

• Fast Five (2011)

• Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

• Fast & Furious 7 (2014)

That’s right! These films are listed in exact Chronological Order! I know! I said I wasn’t gonna Commentary, but come on, man, don’t you see? Each one becomes more Fast and more Furious. They have to! It’s like a shark, the Fast & Furious, it cannot stop, in fact, it must continually accelerate! Toward the Vanishing Point!

Fast & Furious 6 stars muscle-guy baldo Vin Diesel, and giant muscle-guy baldo The Rock Dwayne Johnson, who I last saw in this movie Pain & Gain, which despite having an ampersand, was not that great of a movie. I know it seems to be easy and popular to get mad at highly successful movie director Michael Bay for ruining everything with his success, but this time, I mean, I’m not mad at Michael Bay, I think he was trying to do something with a super-fucked-up Real Life Story, but I think Michael Bay tried to make only parts of it funny, to make it Real, alternately presenting parts which were Real-Life brutal and horrible, and this confused the audience, so they were laughing at scenes that were not really, I believe, intended to be funny, but they occurred after some funny stuff (not tremendously funny, just more like “can you fucking believe how idiotic these criminals are?” attempted-funny) and then the audience was doing nervous-reaction laughter combined with regular laughter and then followed up with the kind of laughter that made me wonder if the movie was some sort of experiment to see who is more fucked up, Michael Bay or a typical Movie Audience. Michael Bay came out of this cleaner, I think, but he’s in the Brian De Palma zone now with trying out all kinds of cute camera setups and shots when he should concentrate on making a movie with a consistent tone.

The movie-still, look at this thing, study it for a moment. You can see by the spinning wheels, the blue vehicle is going super-fast, and then the white vehicle, a classic 1969 Ford Mustang — I found out the year by looking at this gallery entitled “Here Are The 16 Coolest Cars Of ‘Fast And Furious 6,’” the result of waging Google on “cars in fast & furious 6,” but be careful you don’t self-spoiler by looking at the other pictures, because there might be some spoilers, alert — looks like it is crunching down under some sort of tremendous Special Effects road stress, and it looks like it is completely out of control, which, have you ever been in a car you could not control, or dreamed about being in a car and you weren’t steering it and it was going all over? To be completely objective, that’s pretty exciting, and I am betting this feeling of excitement and visceral sensation will be experienced in Fast & Furious 6, “rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action and mayhem throughout, some sexuality and language.” Mayhem!

This is going to be a very feeling-of-being-out-of-control movie, for multiple reasons, going very fast, and then jumping out of an out-of-control car and maybe trying to get on top of the blue car to do something important or heroic.

I think the new Superman Man of Steel movie will be pretty good, mostly because Michael Shannon, who plays the wrapped-way-too-tight Agent Nelson Van Alden on “Boardwalk Empire” is gonna be “General Zod,” who is a really good enemy for Superman because they are from the same planet, so it’s a fair fight. Terence Stamp, who was in The Limey, was a great General Zod back in the 80s in Superman II because he was kinda classy, elegant even.

Also I’m kinda surprised that Behind the Candelabra movie about Liberace is gonna be on Home Box. I thought it was going to be a real movie, you know? I think it’ll be pretty good anyway.

Anyway, right. The longer I study this image from Fast & Furious 6, the more I realize how crazy Fast & Furious 6 will be. I am the target demographic, I think, so I don’t think you should listen to me, unless you can figure out how to filter through my enthusiasm to possibly find some Truth with regards to this movie still.

Meanwhile, on the left-hand side of the photo, there’s a tank. I don’t even know where to begin with this. The tank was probably shooting at some cars, which qualifies it as Furious, I guess, but a tank going super-fast? I am ready to believe it! I also saw a part on a TV spot for Fast & Furious 6 where a car crashes through the front of a giant airplane which is completely on fire and possibly exploding in an intensely violent fashion. I don’t know if you were paying attention to my List, but there’s already gonna be Fast & Furious 7. Thank you.

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias.

“Prague will soon play the role of matchmaker by introducing dating cars on the Czech Republic’s only metro. With brief average ride times of about five minutes, though, can Cupid’s arrow strike where it is needed?”

“To adults, services like Facebook that may seem “private” because you can use privacy tools, but they don’t feel that way to youth who feel like their privacy is invaded on a daily basis. (This, btw, is part of why teens feel like Twitter is more intimate than Facebook. And why you see data like Pew’s that show that teens on Facebook have, on average 300 friends while, on Twitter, they have 79 friends.) Most teens aren’t worried about strangers; their worried about getting into trouble.”