Hipsters.

This weekend I went to a show in Bushwick. I don’t know how to classify this show, however, because it wasn’t music, and it wasn’t performance art. It was more or less like being trapped inside a weird 4D assigment. There was a stage with a bunch of ampliphiers, and noise. Just noise. But the people around me seemed to think it was the most profound noise they had ever heard. It was quite obvious most were tripping on something, but still. As I looked around me, I noticed that every guy in there either idolized the Unibomber or Jesus. And the ones that didn’t were skinny and all wore the same beanie. I don’t think any of them showered. This strange breed of man is known as a “hipster”. According to urbandictionary.com, a hipster is defined as:

“Listens to bands that you have never heard of. Has hairstyle that can only be described as “complicated.” (Most likely achieved by a minimum of one week not washing it.) Probably tattooed. Maybe gay. Definitely cooler than you. Reads Black Book, Nylon, and the Styles section of the New York Times. Drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon. Often. Complains. Always denies being a hipster. Hates the word. Probably living off parents money – and spends a great deal of it to look like they don’t have any. Has friends and/or self cut hair. Dyes it frequently (black, white-blonde, etc. and until scalp bleeds). Has a closet full of clothing but usually wears same three things OVER AND OVER (most likely very tight black pants, scarf, and ironic tee-shirt). Chips off nail polish artfully after $50 manicure. Sleeps with everyone and talks about it at great volume in crowded coffee shops. Addicted to coffee, cigarettes (Parliaments, Kamel Reds, Lucky Strikes, etc.), and possibly cocaine. Claims to be in a band. Rehearsals consist of choosing outfits for next show and drinking PBR. Always on the list. Majors or majored in art, writing, or queer studies. Name-drops. May go by “Penny Lane,” “Eleanor Rigby,” etc. when drunk. On PBR. Which is usually.”

I am not a fucking hipster! (sweeps bangs to side dramatically and takes a swig of PBR)

So as I observed this cult around me, increasingly realizing that I was very much out of place, I thought, “Do hispters exist outside of Brooklyn?” could you imagine half the people you see walking around on this campus congregating in ….Gary, Indiana? Honestly. Of course, there are other cities in the United States who have been invaded by this hipster cult, but it just seems to me that they’re everywhere in Brooklyn.

nonconformists who conform to that of their peers by wearing the same things, comforming to their noncomformist opinions, and traveling in groups that leave a scent.

Anyway, this is just something I thought of this weekend while trapped in hipster hell. I saw a video awhile ago poking harmless fun, and I thought it would be poignant to share =)

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772405

To-Do List

I was browsing around the internet and I came across a couple of recently compiled New York City – theme-ed lists.

The first is a list of the ten greatest buildings in New York: The Center for Architecture’s executive director Rick Bell has recently announced the top ten buildings to see in New York. Most of the buildings that made the list are in Manhattan, but one can be found in our very own Brooklyn. The first link explains why these buildings are so architecturally innovative, while the second link offers pictures.

http://www.amny.com/news/local/ny-bc-ny–travel-trip-nyc-g0219feb19,0,2313458.story

http://gothamist.com/2008/02/21/are_these_nycs.php

The second list I found is entitled The Queens 50: Enjoy it while it lasts. A pre-gentrification to-do list. I think that pretty much sums it up.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/realestate/neighborhoods/features/12195/

A Tiny City

Lori Nix has been recreating cities in her tiny models and detailed miniatures. Check out her website to see her view on the city after nature has taken back control. There are some depictions that come straight out of New York (The Museum, The Library, and Natural History).

 

Her recreations of city landscapes are haunting, almost childlike. She spends much time creating these little miniature cities, only to photograph them. How does this effect the spectrum of photography itself? How does it affect you, the viewer, in a way that mere photographs of the real life-size places wouldn’t? Or does it at all?

Take a look around the site to see her photos of Kansas, which is where she was born. It’s interesting to look into smaller cities as well as the large ones. Both produce drastically different cultures, morals, and societies.

 

http://www.lorinix.net/inside.php3?kateg=1

 

what’s the difference?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/nyregion/18semicolon.html?ex=1204002000&en=b14bbc682199dfb4&ei=5070&emc=eta1

My mother found this article and thought that it would be entertaining. I assume she thought it would be more applicable for expository, but here’s the deal…
Man rides 5 train. Man sees grammatical error. Man boldly corrects said grammatical error. There is a semicolon involved.

So here’s what I want to pose to you all. Of course his intentions were good… but could it be construed as graffiti? Let’s take this guy into consideration.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0805,tucker,78874,2.html

So where’s the line, do you think? Because to be honest, I think it’s strange that the man who for all intents and purposes tagged a subway is commended while the man who draws in chalk on the sidewalk (isn’t that why it’s called “sidewalk chalk?) is harassed by police.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Sir Semicolon…

in honor of valentine’s day…

In honor of the impending Valentine holiday, it’s good to know that one can find love the old-fashioned way: …. through a blind date set up by a New York City cabbie? It’s true:

“The 53-year-old cupid cab driver, as he refers to himself, has spent the past few years playing matchmaker to lonely New Yorkers, setting up more than 70 dates. Nineteen have led to relationships that lasted more than a year.”

However, players beware:

“I want to know if they’re the real deal or just a player,” he said. “If you’re a player, then forget about it.”

rest of the article is here: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_l2Yi3f2vKjLQi_mte6RH_zgunAD8UOQ6OO2

So… would you let this guy set you up with someone?

New York City’s week in Photos

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/02/08/nyregion/20080208_WEEKINPICTURES_SLIDESHOW_index.html

This is a weekly collection of photographs that describe the week in NYC made by the New York Times. Don’t worry, they’re not all about the Giants winning the superbowl. Although, it is interesting how they present each side of NYC’s resident spectrum reacting.
What photo is most poignant to you? Would it still be if you didn’t know the accompanying story (which is shown to the right of the photo) like Walker Evans subway photos? Or is the story a necessary component?

Heroes in Cityscapes

Ever notice how all super heroes and villains are always clashing in large cities. Take Batman, he’s the dark knight that protects Gotham City from the would be villains. Gotham is just another allegory of NYC, like Metropolis is in Superman. I just wanted to point out that this seems to be the more logical choice because a backwater town, or the the suburbs would not been in a major threat than that of a major city.

But here’s another idea, if we have all these heroes in NYC: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spider man, Batman, Superman, The Fantastic Four, The Punisher, etc; then how come they haven’t come accros each other. Although Speed Levitch stated that Manhattan Island is about 2 miles long, (I think), it just seems unrealistic.

Hey there dudes. This is Grace here, taking over for my requisite posting duty. Since we are talking about different parts of New York City, I wanted to spotlight a part from Spike Lee’s “25th Hour.” (Not “The 25th Hour” though the novel it was based on was called that. Spike was cool enough to drop the “the,” like the band who are just “Yeah Yeah Yeahs” if you add a “the” YOU ARE WRONG)
It is unusual in that fact that it is a Spike Lee moviejoint but it is all about this white dude, Montgomery Brogran, played by Edward Norton. The story goes that he is drug dealer in New York who, in 24 hours, will have to go to jail where he will serve a seven-year sentence. The movie is his journey to reevaluate his life and find out who snitched on him before he has to go in the can.
This scene is a monologue in which he goes off on various kinds of New Yorkers and the city itself. I like it better than the one in “Do the right Thing.” Warning: there’s strong language, kids. So don’t watch it with your grandma unless she’s really hip.

What do you think? Is it racist? Awesome? True to life? Not enough Phillip Seymour Hoffman? All of the above?

In case the video made you want to bone up on your NYC neighborhoodography (I’m sure there’s a smart sounding word for that, I just don’t know it) here you go.

Are we in Fort Greene or Clinton Hill? And, no, sadly we are not “Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one / Representing BK to the fullest.”

Sidenote: Did everyone read the Has Manhattan Lost its Soul issuse of Time Out New York? Because it’s awesome & heartbreaking & we should talk about it and stuff.

I found these while searching for my city related art. They are made by Jenny Beorkrem, a Chicago based artist who runs orkposters.com. Posters are 22$ and if I wasn’t so cheap I’d be tempted to get at least one. (and very cool: she donates 2% of All Sales to River Action and HEAL Africa. ) There are also ones for San Fran, Boston, and Chicago. With coming soon versions of C-town (what what!), Stumptown, the Ciudad of Angels and the T-dot.

magenta does not exist on the color spectrum

Dream House: Seven+Eight Years of Sound and Light. The collaborative Sound and Light Environment by composer La Monte Young and visual artist Marian Zazeela.

Presented in Fall 1993 till current.
Young and Zazeela characterize the Sound and Light Environment as “a time installation measured by a setting of continuous frequencies in sound and light.”
The light environment presents four works:
two environmental: Imagic Light and Magenta Day, Magenta Night, installations specifically designed for the site.
two sculptural: a neon work, Dream House Variation I, and a wall sculpture, Ruine Window 1992 from her series, Still Light. In the environment Imagic Light, Zazeela projects pairs of colored lights on mobile forms to create seemingly three-dimensional colored shadows in a luminous field.

The concurrent sound environment presents:
The Base 9:7:4 Symmetry in Prime Time When Centered above and below The Lowest Term Primes in The Range 288 to 224 with The Addition of 279 and 261 in Which The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped above and Including 288 Consists of The Powers of 2 Multiplied by The Primes within The Ranges of 144 to 128, 72 to 64 and 36 to 32 Which Are Symmetrical to Those Primes in Lowest Terms in The Half of The Symmetric Division Mapped below and Including 224 within The Ranges 126 to 112, 63 to 56 and 31.5 to 28 with The Addition of 119, a periodic composite sound waveform environment created from sine wave components generated digitally in real time on a custom-designed Rayna interval synthesizer.

Zazeela’s mobile forms are arrayed in symmetrical patterns with lights placed in precisely symmetrical positions creating symmetrical colored shadows; the wall-mounted light sculpture and the neon are both symmetrical forms. Young’s sound environment is composed of frequencies tuned to the harmonic series between 288 and 224, utilizing numbers with factors of only 9, or those primes or octave transpositions of smaller primes that fall within this range. The interval 288/256 reduces to a 9/8 interval as does the interval 252/224. Thirty-two frequencies satisfy the above definition, of which seventeen fall within the range of the upper, and fourteen fall within the range of the lower of these two symmetrical 9/8 intervals. Young has arranged these thirty-one frequencies in a unique constellation, symmetrical above and below the thirty-second frequency, the center harmonic 254 (the prime 127 x 2).
Both works utilizing concepts of structural symmetry.

The Dream House can inspire sincere self-reflection— of how people physically move, little time for stillness, we are trained to seek and to reward movement and action. To embrace the Dream House is to become entranced and lost in time. And with no permanent closing date established movement will not end..

Open door project Thursdays and Saturdays from 2:00 PM to Midnight. Suggested fee of $4.00.

Sound and Light Environment
Extended Exhibition at MELA Foundation
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor
between Franklin & White Streets in Tribeca

san francisco in jell-o:

since we’re talking about photographic & other visual representations of the city, thought you might be interested in this piece by the artist liz hickok. http://www.lizhickok.com/portfolio_jello.html

image from her website, The City, 2005