It seems the NYT is into coffee table books. Interesting, I always took them more for the sorts of people who leave pretentious novels (read or otherwise) draped about their apartments.
Nothing says reading or viewing pleasure like squares. Squares !
Just imagine the conversations:
-“So, in England, they have this Square, and it’s like no traffic formation you’ve ever seen.”
-“Fuck that british square, yo. I was just looking at a picture of a square in Italy that would kick that funny-speaking Brit square’s ass.”
Unfortunately, the book, “Great Public Squares: An Architect’s Selection,” by Robert F. Gatje, is not portable enough for our NYT reporter: “The book is useful both for travelers and architecture fans, but its coffee-table size makes it strictly for home use. ‘Great Public Squares’ would also make a handy travel-sized paperback — or, better yet, a killer iPhone app.” PILAR VILADAS, The NYT, 6/9/2010
Yeah, this is gonna be a good book, even if I look like a dork toting it around the great cities of the world in search of only the most exceptional squares architecture has to offer.
Having shaken off the jet-lag of my transatlantic transition, I return to praise a great American; I salute you, James Cameron.
Mr. Cameron recently talked some shit on BP to the NYT, and I think we should all look up to him for it. After all, he’s rich enough to name names. It’s a sad day when Hollywood’s wealth is the most trustworthy voice an NYT consumer can find, but just listen to him:
“Sure, thev’ve got lot of cameras down there, but do we want BP choosing where they’re pointed? It’s easy to coordinate multiple cameras on the seabed. It’s nothing more dire than combat. Reporters and the media are allowed in combat situations. Why not when a foreign corporation working in the U.S. economic zone has created the biggest hit to the environment ever and a huge hit to the economy of the southern states?” - James effing Cameron, the NYT, 6/4/2010
We gotta give it to Jimmy boy, here (can I call you Jimmy boy?). Although his films often seem to involve green screens, CGI or other forms of black magic, the man knows how to point a camera - he knows how to make one for Christ’s sake. And it’s true, I want another lens, a 3D lens, down there watching that oil continue to spew, rendering audiences all over the world motion sick.
Jimmy boy is obviously no stranger to ocean videography. His love affair with the sea began long ago, learning how to operate a sub well before resurrecting the Titanic in his greatest aquatic feat. Apparently, Bill Paxton was involved. Cameron said he “did six subsequent deep-ocean expeditions, spent nine months at sea and participated in 55 deep submarine dives.” ibid
This man can make us laugh, cry and puke in a bucket of popcorn while getting used to the future of cinema. I, for one, think he could cork this hole. He and Francis Ford Coppola should join up for the headiest challenge of their careers (aka real life). If they succeed, there may be more than an Oscar in store.
MKS
I think I’ll hold out for this environmentally friendly canvas bag with “WWJCD?” printed proudly atop the image. One needn’t be Dan Brown to grasp the symbolic importance of certain seemingly serendipitous initials. And just think how good a bottle of FFC’s merlot would look tucked inside, nestled against DDV’s limoncello. ARC
Look out; your technological clock is ticking. A recent exposé in the NYT reveals the dangers of “tech overload,” complete with a useful list of seven warning signs, the most interesting ones excerpted here:
“Do you frequently find yourself anticipating the next time you’ll be online?”
“Have you ever lied about or tried to hide how long you’ve been online?”
(and, perhaps the most damning)
“Have you ever chosen to spend time online rather than going out with others?”
Well, dear reader, we are not alone, and this addiction is probably not our fault. We members of the technocracy are witnessing (or failing to witness, due to our increasingly short attention spans) a (r)evolution in the ways our brains function. The ability to multitask, increased with technology such as the smart phone, is causing rerouting and reorganizing of the human brain. Our general attentiveness to distractions originally served a necessary, protective function, to “alert humans to danger, like a nearby lion.” This alert button, however, had a negative consequence for our lion-prone ancestors, “overriding goals like building a hut.” Today, however, our stakes have been raised: “the chime of incoming e-mail can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children.”
Forget the mud-brick hut (although perhaps you can find a handy recipe for mud-bricks on your iPad!)—our future, our children, are now in jeopardy! And it is from the mouths of babes that we detect a telling language pattern surrounding this tech addiction. Carrying on the family tradition of hypermedia consumption, a child of the central NYT tech addict recounts his difficulties maintaining concerted focus. “When he studied, ‘a little voice would be saying, “Look up” at the computer, and I’d look up,’ Connor said.” This same displacement of media consumption desire, the creation of an internal mechanism that urges internet usage, is echoed in a quote from another hyper-consumer:
“‘The media is changing me,’ he said. ‘I hear this internal ping that says: check e-mail and voice mail.’”
Not only do these comments place the blame for internet addiction on some source outside of individual volition, they also situate this call, the need for external technological gadgetry, internally. We no longer have merely a biological clock, we are ruled by an internal technological craving. Consult David Cronenberg by all means, but I am still waiting for them to explain my email anxiety through hormones. ARC
In keeping with our unusual choice of posts, I’m begging you to read this recent John Waters interview in the NYT. The man is so succinct, so reasonable and yet so potentially creepy I have nothing to add to the conversation (apart from an urge to watch that scene in Cecil B. DeMented when the studio execs are synchronized-slurping their fresh Baltimore oysters). ARC
Today we’re presenting something a little different: a well thought out and clearly presented post — no thanks to us.
MKS
I was very late in making The New York Times my primary news source, and for a poor reason- elitism. There are still sections that ooze smug privilege, like the quarterly fashion magazine. The features that illustrated the strains of the recession through depressed private jet markets and frugal…
I specifically recall one of those “recession features” with the title: “It’s Not So Easy Being Less Rich.” I must admit, though, that as a reader predisposed to ATNTFTB before it even existed, I found this article more LOL than offensive (if “lol” stands for “full of morally bankrupt lifestyle choices that are nevertheless hilarious for the educated middle-class reader doomed to college debt-related poverty”). My former roommate and I may not ever have the privilege of the last laugh, but we could certainly enjoy a hearty chuckle at the (temporary) loss of the privilegeds’ privileges. ARC
Gastronomy may be moving closer and closer to being considered an art, but apparently no restaurant is close enough to abstract expressionism to bear the name “Untitled” or “No. 5.” This does not preclude it from having a consciousness, according to the NYT:
“It is unfinished, for the most part unstaffed, and all too aware that it isn’t even a restaurant yet. But that doesn’t keep it from having feelings. It exudes a palpable impatience. Staring out of its construction-smeared windows at West 65th Street, it broods. Biding its time across from the Juilliard School, its annoyance at anonymity grows with the gawking of every new sidewalk superintendent.”
The palpable self-importance in this nameless but heavily personified establishment is echoed by its eager staff, who express concern at the blank nametag:
“‘This minute, hundreds of people all over the world are thinking about our spoons and cutlery and olive oil and junction boxes and dishwashers,’ Mr. Benno said. The architectural elements of the kitchen are being built in Quebec, to be shipped in pieces. Tables and chairs are being crafted in Germany following tests during which Mr. Benno, Mr. Novello and Mr. Valenti did a lot of sitting. As for linens? Don’t start.”
Being a formerly avid follower of Top Chef, I sympathize with the amount of tiptoeing and thought that goes into choosing the title of a restaurant. The naming process would reduce otherwise capable and creative chefs to vapid simpletons; we need only recall “quatre,” inexplicably pronounced “cot,” for a cringe-worthy example.
And obviously Restaurant Depot and Whole Foods cannot provide ancestral hand-stitched doilies from Normandy. Mr. Wolf assures us that this establishment will be de la classe, “‘in a temple of high art. It’s one of the few places where the look, and the kind of flatware that is used — and even the way the tableware is presented — can produce a series of icons, as the Four Seasons originally did.’”
Mr. Wolf might do well to bite his tongue. Some intrepid journalism informs us that scandals surround art and the Four Seasons, where Mark Rothko suddenly refused to submit his murals to such a cesspool of bourgeois decadence. Anyway, as already discussed, the Restaurant Who Shall Not Be Named may inspire poetic devices, but it worships at a temple of art conventional enough to require titles. ARC
China’s sexual revolution has found itself a superhero in Ma Yaohai:
“In public, he was a twice-divorced computer science professor dedicated to his students and to caring for an elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
In private, the professor, Ma Yaohai, 53, led a life that became intolerable to Chinese authorities: for the past six years, he was a member of informal swingers clubs that practiced group sex and partner swapping. In online chat rooms, his handle was Roaring Virile Fire. He organized and engaged in at least 18 orgies, most of them in the two-bedroom apartment in Nanjing where he lived with his mother, according to prosecutors.”
One might assume that such a character as “Roaring Virile Fire” might be supported by his nation as mankind’s next great hope, but instead Professor Ma (speaking of whom, what did he do with her in his two-bedroom palace during these orgies—shove her in a closet?) has been arrested by the authorities for “crowd licentiousness” a.k.a. swinging.
We here at ATNTFTB are certainly supportive of individual liberties, but the language surrounding Professor Ma’s escapades arouses suspicion:
“’Marriage is like water,’ he said. ‘You have to drink it. Swinging is like wine. Some people feel it’s delicious the first time they try it, so they keep drinking. Some people try it and think it tastes bad, so they never drink it again. It’s completely voluntary. No one is forcing you.’”
Not that we’re greedily imbibing the Communist Party’s Kool-Aid, but we would certainly pass on Professor Ma’s rohypnol martini.
Professor Ma may engage in questionable sexual activities with his Alzheimer’s-ridden mother nearby, but the Chinese government easily trumps him in downright psychotic behavior. The NYT informs us that “the law against group sex, generally interpreted by judges as involving three or more people, is left over from an earlier law against ‘hooliganism’ that was used to prosecute people who had sex outside of marriage…One notable swingers case took place in the early 1980s, when the leader of a swingers club involving four middle-aged couples was executed” [my italics, bold, and general air of disbelief]
No one is entirely without fault in this story of a sexual pioneer-turned-martyr. Even the NYT is guilty of fetishizing Professor Ma, as can be seen from the thumbnail image included alongside the article. The cloud of smoke emerging from our hero’s mouth, while upon first glance appearing to be some sort of regrettable, possibly STI-related fungal beard growth, is secondarily reminiscent of the beautiful smoke clouds in the films of director Wong Kar-Wai. By choosing this pose, intentionally or not, the NYT relegates Professor Ma to a fictional world of suppressed Chinese eroticism of the 1960s—instead of being in the mood for justice, we are suddenly in the mood for love.
There is no real problem with this, possibly. I, personally, have never read a newspaper article and determined to single-handedly right the wrongs of this tired, apocalypse-ready world. In fact, by seeing that picture and determining its specific effect on me, I have identified and can seek to alter the incredibly skewed way I perceive a certain brand of Chinese sexuality. I must admit, however, that despite this realization, I am suddenly less interested in Chinese sexual politics than in 2046. ARC
This is potentially the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read. Certainly we’ve all considered crawling into a hole and just letting the world pass us by, but we want that to be our decision, not mother nature’s. Au Canada, no such luck:
“OTTAWA — Richard Préfontaine and his wife, Lynne Charbonneau, were watching a playoff hockey game with their two daughters on Monday night when the ground beneath their house gave way suddenly and without warning.
…
The family’s remains were found huddled together on a couch by the television, with rescuers discovering only their golden retriever, tied to a tree, alive.”
Another in the many signs of our coming demise, the earth has begun to crumble beneath our very feet. We’re all at risk here; well, those of us living on salt water clay. I salute the NYT for actually making me feel better here, explaining the ornery and finicky nature of this soil. Given it’s foundation on sea-based, volatile clay, much of Canada is just waiting to sink. One professor tells us, “[a] variety of events can break the molecular bonds holding the clay particles together. When that occurs, the clay can spontaneously liquefy with little or no provocation.” ibid
Don’t eff around with this stuff or it could end up costing you dearly. Even if you leave it alone, “a fly landing on the surface can set it off.” ibid.Butterfly Effect- and my general affinity for 2012- aside, this may not be the sound of apocalyptic bells chiming. Apparently the Canadians are wise to their unstable land (or “terre” as it were), and have taken action in the past: “The town of Lemieux, Ontario, east of Ottawa, was relocated in 1991 after officials became concerned about the stability of the clay underneath the town. Two years later, a landslide consumed 42 acres near Lemieux’s former location.” ibid
The NYT says science explains this problem, but I have more dire visions. MKS
We’ve all dreamed of launching a successful blog-to-book, or perhaps even blog-to-reality television show. But not even the purported popularity of twitterature could have prepared us for what the NYT assures us is happening: a twitter-to-book-to-sitcom.
This is not just any sitcom, mind you. This is a sitcom starring William Shatner that appears to feature at least two wooden ducks and some sort of copper brain as table decorations (note the picture above). Justin Halpern’s rise to greatness “sounds like every aspiring tweeter’s dream come true. A fledgling screenwriter, he had sold only one feature-length script, which was essentially dead on arrival at the studio. After splitting up with a girlfriend, he moved home to San Diego from Los Angeles a year ago, saving money by bunking with his parents.”
Now, not only has fame and fortune inspired the return of his gf (did she ever really, truly love him?) it has also bought him time on the NYT. Mr. Halpern decided, at the suggestion of a tweeterpal going under the assumed name of Michael Bay, to tweet all the darnedest things his father says. Except these things are cute enough to warrant the title “Bleep My Father Says.” Americans are so starved for witty profanity, there is a market for this man’s Benjamin Franklin-esque quotability in both book and sitcom form. If this catches on, we fervently anticipate a Michael Bay summer blockbuster in 2011. ARC
![China’s sexual revolution has found itself a superhero in Ma Yaohai:
“In public, he was a twice-divorced computer science professor dedicated to his students and to caring for an elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
In private, the professor, Ma Yaohai, 53, led a life that became intolerable to Chinese authorities: for the past six years, he was a member of informal swingers clubs that practiced group sex and partner swapping. In online chat rooms, his handle was Roaring Virile Fire. He organized and engaged in at least 18 orgies, most of them in the two-bedroom apartment in Nanjing where he lived with his mother, according to prosecutors.”
One might assume that such a character as “Roaring Virile Fire” might be supported by his nation as mankind’s next great hope, but instead Professor Ma (speaking of whom, what did he do with her in his two-bedroom palace during these orgies—shove her in a closet?) has been arrested by the authorities for “crowd licentiousness” a.k.a. swinging.
We here at ATNTFTB are certainly supportive of individual liberties, but the language surrounding Professor Ma’s escapades arouses suspicion:
“’Marriage is like water,’ he said. ‘You have to drink it. Swinging is like wine. Some people feel it’s delicious the first time they try it, so they keep drinking. Some people try it and think it tastes bad, so they never drink it again. It’s completely voluntary. No one is forcing you.’”
Not that we’re greedily imbibing the Communist Party’s Kool-Aid, but we would certainly pass on Professor Ma’s rohypnol martini.
Professor Ma may engage in questionable sexual activities with his Alzheimer’s-ridden mother nearby, but the Chinese government easily trumps him in downright psychotic behavior. The NYT informs us that “the law against group sex, generally interpreted by judges as involving three or more people, is left over from an earlier law against ‘hooliganism’ that was used to prosecute people who had sex outside of marriage…One notable swingers case took place in the early 1980s, when the leader of a swingers club involving four middle-aged couples was executed” [my italics, bold, and general air of disbelief]
No one is entirely without fault in this story of a sexual pioneer-turned-martyr. Even the NYT is guilty of fetishizing Professor Ma, as can be seen from the thumbnail image included alongside the article. The cloud of smoke emerging from our hero’s mouth, while upon first glance appearing to be some sort of regrettable, possibly STI-related fungal beard growth, is secondarily reminiscent of the beautiful smoke clouds in the films of director Wong Kar-Wai. By choosing this pose, intentionally or not, the NYT relegates Professor Ma to a fictional world of suppressed Chinese eroticism of the 1960s—instead of being in the mood for justice, we are suddenly in the mood for love.
There is no real problem with this, possibly. I, personally, have never read a newspaper article and determined to single-handedly right the wrongs of this tired, apocalypse-ready world. In fact, by seeing that picture and determining its specific effect on me, I have identified and can seek to alter the incredibly skewed way I perceive a certain brand of Chinese sexuality. I must admit, however, that despite this realization, I am suddenly less interested in Chinese sexual politics than in 2046. ARC](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/allthenewsthatsfittoblog/618876555/1/tumblr_l2rmtwgS5O1qbtgj4)
![This is potentially the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read. Certainly we’ve all considered crawling into a hole and just letting the world pass us by, but we want that to be our decision, not mother nature’s. Au Canada, no such luck:
“OTTAWA — Richard Préfontaine and his wife, Lynne Charbonneau, were watching a playoff hockey game with their two daughters on Monday night when the ground beneath their house gave way suddenly and without warning.
…
The family’s remains were found huddled together on a couch by the television, with rescuers discovering only their golden retriever, tied to a tree, alive.”
IAN AUSTEN/The NYT/May 12, 2010
Another in the many signs of our coming demise, the earth has begun to crumble beneath our very feet. We’re all at risk here; well, those of us living on salt water clay. I salute the NYT for actually making me feel better here, explaining the ornery and finicky nature of this soil. Given it’s foundation on sea-based, volatile clay, much of Canada is just waiting to sink. One professor tells us, “[a] variety of events can break the molecular bonds holding the clay particles together. When that occurs, the clay can spontaneously liquefy with little or no provocation.” ibid
Don’t eff around with this stuff or it could end up costing you dearly. Even if you leave it alone, “a fly landing on the surface can set it off.” ibid. Butterfly Effect- and my general affinity for 2012- aside, this may not be the sound of apocalyptic bells chiming. Apparently the Canadians are wise to their unstable land (or “terre” as it were), and have taken action in the past: “The town of Lemieux, Ontario, east of Ottawa, was relocated in 1991 after officials became concerned about the stability of the clay underneath the town. Two years later, a landslide consumed 42 acres near Lemieux’s former location.” ibid
The NYT says science explains this problem, but I have more dire visions. MKS](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/allthenewsthatsfittoblog/618708452/1/tumblr_l2rhamjGOA1qbtgj4)
