“Slang is like a breeze; it softly comes and goes, as new times bring new buzzwords. Some stick (‘cool’ defiantly endures); some induce cringes when dusted off (‘groovy’ is now in the dustbin of irony). It’s obvious when slang becomes less funny or less meaningful through overuse: ‘Internets,’ for example, has become too widespread to [...]
Archive for May, 2009
Baseball’s Slang, or: “Setting the Table” with “Muffins” & “Jelly Beans”
Posted in Baseball, Books, Language, Popular Culture, Sports on May 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Kerouac at the Bat: Jack Kerouac’s Personal Fantasy Baseball Game
Posted in Baseball, Books, Museums & Exhibitions, New York City, Popular Culture, Sports, Writers & Writing on May 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Almost all his life Jack Kerouac had a hobby that even close friends and fellow-Beats like Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs never knew about. He obsessively played a fantasy baseball game of his own invention, charting the exploits of made-up players like Wino Love, Warby Pepper, Heinie Twiett, Phegus Cody and Zagg Parker, who toiled on imaginary teams named either [...]
Thrown for a Curve: The Secret of the Curve Ball Picked World’s Best Illusion
Posted in Baseball, Science & Technology, Sports on May 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“The three best visual illusions in the world were chosen at a gathering last weekend of neuroscientists and psychologists at the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Florida. “The winning entry, from a Bucknell University professor, may help explain why curve balls in baseball are so tricky to hit. “A properly thrown curve ball [...]
Springtime for Hitler: Hitler, Nazi Relics Fetch Record Prices at Connecticut Auction
Posted in Antiques & Folk Art, Business, Collectors & Collecting, Europe, Jewish Life on May 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“The items were sometimes delicate, often minimalist and always haunting: a monogrammed silver matchbox; a gold locket with a butterfly design; a letter-opener, its sturdy handle embellished with an eagle and a swastika. Up for auction here on Thursday, the relics fetched record prices and even spurred bidding wars, purely because of their history: They [...]
The Paper Industry’s “Sine Wave Goodbye” Opens Thursday at the Ontological Theater
Posted in Actors & Acting, New York City, Performing Arts, Plays & Playwrights, Theater on May 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Shameless plug for The Paper Industry‘s “Sine Wave Goodbye” which opens Thursday at Richard Foreman‘s Ontological-Hysteric Theater in Manhattan’s East Village . . . featuring my son (at left). From the Press Release: In The Paper Industry’s latest ‘ugly opera’ a man named M escapes the social machine only to lose himself inside his mind, [...]
Ancient Manuscripts in a Digital Age: Reading Crumbling Texts with X-Rays, Multispectral Imaging
Posted in Ancient History, Archaeology, Books, Literature, Religion, Science & Technology on May 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“In a 21st-century version of the age of discovery, teams of computer scientists, conservationists and scholars are fanning out across the globe in a race to digitize crumbling literary treasures. “In the process, they’re uncovering unexpected troves of new finds, including never-before-seen versios of the Christian Gospels, fragments of Greek poetry and commentaries on Aristotle. [...]
“By the Time We Got to Woodstock”: Commemorating Woodstock’s 40th Anniversary
Posted in Counter Culture, Popular Culture, Popular Music, Rock 'n' Roll on May 12, 2009 | 5 Comments »
“MICHAEL Lang and Joel Rosenman were two of the producers of the original Woodstock festival 40 summers ago. Lately, they have been trying to pull together an anniversary concert this year, they really have, but you have to understand, man, it’s complex. . . . “While the partners’ most promising idea — a one-day mini-Woodstock in [...]
In Mustard They Trust: Obama, Texans, Republican Lawmakers Prefer Mustard to Ketchup
Posted in American West, Congress, Food & Wine, Obama, Politics, Popular Culture on May 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“What kind of a man eats his hamburger without ketchup? That was the big question yesterday on talk radio, after President Obama visited an Arlington, Virginia, hamburger place on Tuesday and ordered his burger with spicy mustard.” Apparently Texans and Republicans also prefer mustard to ketchup as their condiment of choice: In Texas: “Texans traditionally eat hamburgers [...]
Thy Name is “Black Alabama”: Amazon Kindle Mispronounces Barack Obama
Posted in Books, Magazines & Newspapers, Obama, Science & Technology on May 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“The Amazon Kindle, an electronic reader, has been lavished with praise by hopeful newspaper and book executives who say they believe it has the potential to do for newspapers and books what the iPod did for music. “But if the Kindle, which not only displays the news but also speaks it with a computerized voice, is ever to be [...]
Designing Brooklyn: 7th Annual BKLYN DESIGNS Show Opens Tomorrow
Posted in Arts & Crafts, Brooklyn, Business, DUMBO, Design, Museums & Exhibitions, New York City, Urban Affairs on May 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“TOMORROW, the seventh annual show of designs created in Brooklyn — Bklyn Designs — will open in Dumbo, drawing renewed attention to this neighborhood of former factories and warehouses, and its vibrant design scene. “Over the last six years, the juried show, which features contemporary furnishings, lighting and accessories designed, and in most cases made, [...]
Lies My Presidents Told Me: Andrew Sullivan On Clinton & Dubya
Posted in American West, Bush, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Current Events, Politics, Sex & Gender on May 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Andrew Sullivan on what we remember most about Bill Clinton and George W. Bush . . . and the consequences: “It occurs to me that the two most famous statements of the last two presidents will be ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman,’ and ‘We do not torture.’ And both were lies [...]
The Unburied: Corpses Having Sex, Coffee Table Book on Cadavers
Posted in Art & Artists, Books, Education, Europe, Health & Medicine, Human Behavior, Museums & Exhibitions, Performing Arts, Photography, Science & Technology, Sex & Gender on May 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Visual explorations of how the human body works have had us riveted since before Leonardo da Vinci sketched the famous Vitruvian man sometime around 1487. That fascination is the focus of what may be one of the most gruesome coffee table books ever. “Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880-1930 contains [...]
La Dolce Vita: NSRG Traveling to Italy
Posted in Actors & Acting, Education, Europe, Foreign Travel, Performing Arts, Photography, Plays & Playwrights, Theater on May 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Posting will be spotty between now and the first week in June. I’ll be in DUMBO next week to see my son in “Sine Wave Goodbye” at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and to attend my daughter’s commencement at Fordham University where she’s receiving her M.S. in TESOL Education. On the 17th my wife and I are [...]
2009 TONY Award Nominations Announced (Marin Ireland Nominated for her Broadway Debut)
Posted in Actors & Acting, Performing Arts, Plays & Playwrights, Theater on May 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
CONGRATULATIONS to Marin Ireland for her 2009 TONY nomination for “Best Performance By A Featured Actress In A Play” for her performance as Steph in Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty. reasons marks Marin’s Broadway debut after many successful roles both Off-Broadway and in regional theaters. My wife costumed Marin during her formative summer stock days [...]
Splendor in the Grass: Couple Arrested for Having Sex Outside Windsor Castle
Posted in Crimes & Misdemeanors, Europe, Sex & Gender on May 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Queen Elizabeth II was at home at Windsor Castle, the sentries who guard her were on duty, and the large park surrounding the magnificent building was full of tourists on a Sunday afternoon. “So it didn’t take long for people to realize that something was out of order when a couple enjoying a picnic on [...]
