Flaming Pablum

Do You Wear the Marc?

For those smitten with the recent Marc Jacobs art kerfuffle (which I spoke about here), Jeremiah Moss has an update. Click here.

In Case You Missed It...

This is a purely self-promotional post. You have been warned.

I had two nice pieces published over at The Job this week. One on hand soaps for men (yes, you read that right) and the other on our oft-cited friend Bob Egan's excellent site, PopSpots. The latter article even saw some major play on the MSNBC.com homepage (see screengrab above). As they say, I was well chuffed about that. Hopefully, any resulting traffic didn't bust Bob's site.

Out of the Silent Planet

This was already on Curbed and a couple of other places, so many of you may have already seen this, but for those who haven't, go check out Lucie & Simon's haunting "Silent World" collection -- an eerie collection of photographs of urban centers like Paris, Beijing and -- of course -- New York City, but robbed of virtually all of their respective inhabitants (the photographers usually plant one or two individuals in each frame). They're quite striking.

Above is their depiction of an uncharacteristically ghostly stretch of 6th Avenue. I've worked in or around the neighborhood above for all my professional life, and it's truly a rare scene to see it that deserted, being that it's usually choked with iPhone zombies, tourists, besuited office douches and other human cattle.

Nobunny Does It Better

I was quite a busy little bunny today. Over at The Job, I penned yet another rumination about the travails of parenting and the mythology of Easter (you may remember me discussing my previous one from last week). Please avail yourselves to it here, but be warned -- it deals in unflinchingly frank terms about the Easter Bunny. If you're not prepared to face up to some hard truths, you'd be better off not clicking.

On other fronts, I also penned a quick little story about the oddest book title of the year: "Cooking With Poo." Should that get your mouth watering, click right here to read it.

Incidentally, I found the frankly disquieting photograph above when I did a Google image search for "Disturbing Easter"

 

The Beat of the Street

A number of years back, my buddy Tim B. of Stupefaction fame started a collective blog called The New York Nobody Sings, wherein he, myself and a clutch of other similarly-inclined bloggy types could wax rhapsodic about songs exclusively devoted to our native New York City. It’s a favorite subject of mine, and one I’ve spent several posts ruminating about here as well.

I suppose it’s really not that original of an idea at the end of the day, as Time Out New York recently published their list of “100 best NYC songs.” Their publicist shot me a note about it to evangelize it. I didn’t initially expect to be impressed, but their list does have some left-field stuff contained therein. For every endearingly esoteric choice (like “D Train” by the Unsane) there comes the predictable (“New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel) and the strenuously lamentable (Jennifer Lopez’s “Jenny From the Block”? Really? Fuck you!). I was bored to see that they gave the #1 to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind,” a song that has yet to earn canonical status (it’s no “Native New Yorker” by Odyssey or “New York Groove” by Ace Frehley, as far as I’m concerned).

Anyway, while I think there were a few key omissions, it’s not a bad list. But see what you think.

Requiem for a Monkee

In the wake of the sad news of the premature death of Davy Jones, I thought I'd exhume this truly inspired bit of audio tomfoolerly (which I originally crowed about here in 2009), now augmented with some visuals. 

Pour one out for Davy.

Intermission

Those Left Behind

Here's a stange one. The LIVE! Tumblr has been making the rounds lately, and it's a odd mix of the poignant and the grim. Blogmeisters Jean-Marie Delbes and Hatim El Hihi (their real name?) do a little creative photoshopping to replicate iconic album covers, factoring in the unfortunate demises of some of the artists in question. They end results might be considered jarring or even tasteless, but they do make for a compelling perusal. Check it out here.

Slamination

I’m shamelessly ripping this off of my pal Glen’s excellent blog, but it’s too cool not to share. Remember the Radio Soulwax project? Well, they’ve turned their attention to hardcore!! And the finished product is an hour long. So grab yourself a cup of coffee, settle in and soak it up. Ready? Set? GO!

Hardcore or die from Radio Soulwax on Vimeo.

Finding the Cure

Regular readers here may remember a spate of photo quizzes I put up last summer, wherein I tried to pinpoint the exact locations of several images shot in or around New York City of some of my favorite bands. While I was fairly successful in doing so, there were a couple of shots that still managed to elude me. One such photo was the shot by Ebet Roberts of The Cure above, an image that prompted no less than five consecutive posts. Over the course of same, Bob Egan of PopSpots NYC got involved (who I recently wrote about here). While I was somewhat content to chalk the photo up as "unsolvable," the intrepid Mr. Egan -- who, by his own admission, isn't even really a fan of the Cure -- got straight to work. And when Bob Egan gets to pop-spottin', you best look out.

So, over the last couple of weeks, Bob managed to solve the riddle. Here's a bit of his own explanation:

Hi Alex, I’m 99.9% sure I have it, The Cure, so to speak. (Just need to find a picture of a building that was knocked down). I have photos with about 5 very substantial clues circled which I can send to you. (But I thought you might want to guess first) Here’s a hint: I think they walked from Hurrah’s to the Museum of Natural History, bought some gifts at the gift shop (they all have white bags, one has a blow-up plane), then walked back, and had their photo taken on the way. (UPDATe: I think they went to a Toy Store on Columbus)) Another hint: The building that contained #406 is no longer with us. Best, Bob

P.s. 406 Columbus is gone. For Google maps use: 410 Columbus (bet 79-80) Pps. I am also trying to find a picture of the 1/2 block of stores behind them that has now been replaced by a tall apartment building. There’s a bar with an awning that says “Publick House” Not sure if it’s the name of the bar though, or a description. PPS: By the way they are standing outside of what is today a toy store called Homboms. That wasn’t open then according to the people in the store, but a famous toy store existed in the neighborhood called Pennywhistle owned by Tom Brokow’s wife, Meredith, for many years. Maybe that’s what’s in the bags and the blow up airplane.

And like a good mathematician, Bob is admirably able to show his work in typically exhaustively thorough detail. See below, and click on each to enlarge:

 

 

So, anyway, hats off again to Bob Egan. He promises a post of his own devoted to same on PopShots sometime in January, so keep your eyes open for that. In the interim, here are the Cure from the same era as the photograph above: