Flaming Pablum

The L.E.S. Lensman

For those of you like myself who weren't able to attend the screening of "Captured" -- Ben Solomon and Dan Levin's provocative documentary about maverick Lower East Side photographer/artist Clayton Patterson -- a couple of weeks back, the film is now available for buying or renting via either the nefarious channels of Amazon VOD or iTunes. I finally got around to seeing it this week and it is truly gripping. Patterson made an amazing habit of being in the thick of it at all times. Myself and several others may take pretty little pictures of downtown NYC, but Clayton Patterson was on the front lines way back when the E.V./L.E.S. was truly a vastly different place from the bourgeoning hotbed of insanely pricey real estate that it is today. The film pulls very few punches. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Find out more here. I was also bemused to learn that I unknowingly took a picture of Clayon's front door (illustrated by Marcoart's Marco) a number of years back.

Space Invasion

On our twice-daily jaunt through the East Village yesterday, I decided to hang a right on 3rd Avenue at St. Marks to get a closer look at the new Cooper Union monstrosity building. As my friend Nancy said, it sorta looks like one side of it needs to be pulled up, as if it were a sagging drape. In any case, it reminded me of the now-quite-quaint complaints I heard when Cooper Union erected its surprisingly utilitarian dormitory just a couple of blocks to the north. This new building shows zero regard for the architectural integrity and character of the neighborhood in which it's been dropped onto. In fact, scrawled on the boards covering what will be its ground floor, I found the most telling piece of public criticism about it yet. See below.

Ready or Not,...

I'm not entirely sure what online gambling has to do with playing a violent round of hide-&-go-seek with a giant, worryingly excitable lemur, but I think this ad is well beyond awesome. Thanks to the always-entertaining Copyranter for this one.

Atrocity Exhibition

A couple of years back, I put up a post here about my concern about the relatively recent spate of gruesome Halloween window displays, expressing my shock at how graphic they'd become. I'm not a prudish guy, honestly. I love gory, gratuitously violent films as much as the next red-blooded American male. But since becoming a father, I think my sensitivity level has spiked. While I may occasionally enjoy watching someone get chainsawed in half, I'm not really of the mindset that it's suitable for all viewers. I don't think I'm being unreasonable about that.

Today, I saw something that trumps all that. On the corner of Broadway and 11th street -- right across from Grace Church -- on the ground floor of a NYU dorm, there's an art gallery called Broadway Windows. You can't go inside it -- it's just a street-side window display. Generally speaking, the art on offer has always been pretty banal. Every so often, they'll have something compelling in there, but nine times out of ten, the stuff is pretty "meh" at best. For the last several weeks, they were displaying massive, unflattering portraits of Lindsay Lohan (of all people) looking either bug-eyed or heavily lidded. Why anyone would want to paint -- let alone look at, much less buy -- huge pictures of Lindsay Lohan is beyond me, but whatever. It was easy enough to ignore.

The new show on exhibit today took me by surprise. Inexplicably titled "Bold As Love" (I feel there should be an apology to the Hendrix estate somewhere), this display features a series of sculptures made out of what looks like felt. It's essentially a series of severed heads, impaled on sticks, complete with splatters and pools of felt blood. All told it looks a bit like a deleted scene from "The Muppets Go To Apocalypse Now." The faces are dead-eyed and creepily life-like. But because they're in cartoony felt, am I supposed to feel okay about it? What's the message here? Is it a statement about how we've become so callous as a society that the abjectly horrific can be reduced to an ersatz puppet show? I can't quite find the answer beyond shock for the sake of needless shock.

Once again, I'm not one to turn away from that which is shocking. I relish a good bit of envelope-shoving, but speaking as the parent of two very small, very observant and very curious children, I have to say that I'm a bit aghast. I hate to sound like I'm on the side of censorship, but why must this show be situated on such an unavoidable byway? We live about two blocks away from these windows, and being that they're on essentially a main drag, we're invariably going to have walk by at some point or another (I should also point out that it's directly across the street from the Grace Church grade school). I know -- I must be sounding like an incredibly pious, sanctimonious stuffed-shirt, but would you want your five-year-old kid looking at this stuff? Outrageous retorts are welcome. Seriously, I'm curious to read a sincere defense of this. Click on the images here for a larger view.

Addendum: Read the show's press release here. 

Stuff You May Have Missed

Here's a quick rundown of some of the stuff on other people's blogs I've been reading. Check'em out....

Tim B. discovers The Wayne Kramer solution

Copyranter brings you inspired prophylactic advertising

Are you one of the 50 hottest college students in New York City?

Stay at Stove Dave tackles Linguini alle Vongole (a dish I can barely spell, let alone prepare)

Slum Goddess Eden discovers the Greatest T-Shirt Ever in the East Village

Glen warns you about cow's milk

Hunter-Gatherer mourns Badfinger

This Ain't the Summer of Love mourns the old Times Square

Apocalyptic Rebop takes on Kiss' Dynasty

Dispiriting Items on Sale at Astor Place Kmart

Licensed "vintage" Pink Floyd tour t-shirts (yeah, `cos Pink Floyd really need the money), full-on creepy botanica candles (strangely in between the hardware and housewares aisles) and disconcertingly sexualized "Tinker Bell" coloring books replete with "come hither" glances.

Perfect Song for Today

Krautspotting

My Mom came visiting earlier today to help me out with the kids and give me a tiny bit of a breather, allowing me to go run some much-needed errands. During the course of same, I noticed that the Union Square Virgin Megastore had finally given up the ruse and was now fully admitting that the store was soon to close via posters announcing a storewide sale. I popped in to sniff around, although there isn't really anything I'm looking for at the moment (and I still haven't had time to listen to that Jane's Addiction box set, the new Mastodon and that Cure remaster). But who am I to turn my nose up at a sale?

Finding nothing in the racks (even at 20% off the sticker price), I wandered over to a space wherein they usually displayed punk stuff. I noticed a thin gent standing there wearing a vintage t-shirt of my NYC hardcore heroes, Kraut (featuring the cover of their second LP, Whetting the Scythe). "Kraut.... fuckin' nice!," I exclaimed while gesturing to the shirt. I looked up and suddenly realized it was none other than Kraut guitarist Doug Holland himself. Once I spotted this, I practically dropped to my knees ala Wayne Campbell's "We're not worthy" stance (embarrassing Holland in the process). We chatted for a bit. I asked him why their hilariously rude b-side, "Matinee" (as in "I'm fuckin' my girl at the....") was never appended to any of their compact disc collections and only available on a rare Killed By Death compilation. He went onto explain that said track was basically just a Ramones homage and only meant to be a limited thing. He handed me a flyer advertising a show coming up at the Blender theater. Kraut will be playing alongside Reagan Youth, Blanks `77 and a host of others on May 22nd. I'm going to try to be there. So should you. In any case, Doug was totally cool, approachable and an overall good guy. Just for some further historical perspective, it should be noted that  after Kraut's first go-`round (wherein they appeared on the classic ROIR compilation New York Thrash, Holland joined the seminal line-up of the Cro-Mags. I only got to see Kraut a few years after that when they reunited at the New Ritz on 54th street, opening up for G.B.H. In any case, they've always been one of my faves of the era.

Here they are from their most celebrated hour, the video for "All Twsited" off their classic debut LP, An Adjustment to Society. I may be wrong, but I believe this was the first hardcore video to ever get any play on the nascent MTV in the early 80s. Gloriously low-budget. Crank it up.

Moz & Johnny ... together at last

I spotted this on my former colleague/fellow unemployed drone MacKenzie's blog this morning. I can't say I've picked up a "new" Morrissey album since his somewhat strenuously maligned Southpaw Grammar in 1995 (featuring the stomping Moz-Goes-Metal epic, "The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils"), but the cover photograph of this new single alone is almost enough for me to cough up the cash, just so I can slap it in a goddamn frame.

East Village Kidz

The wife had to go away again this week quite suddenly to visit a relative who has taken ill. As such I'm back on full-time solo parent duty. I tell ya, my hat is off to single parents who are able to do this without losing their sanity. But, we're dealing. I'm spending most of my time either ensconced in my kids' school or traipsing to and from its location deep in the veritable crotch of the East Village. It's a lot of walking, but at least I'm getting my exercise.

I've been documenting a few of the sights of those treks in some recent posts, but there are a few vignettes I haven't been able to capture. Earlier this week, for example, while pushing my kids' stroller in a light-but-persistent drizzle on Avenue A, I saw two bedraggled, beardy homeless men locked in a full-on amorous clench, their eyes closed in passionate romantic abandon. On Tuesday, meanwhile, little Oliver's hand came shooting out of the back of his stroller to point out a relatively fresh pile of dog pooh that someone had jokingly topped with ice cream-sprinkles. Everyone's a comedian. Today, as Oliver and I were attempting to enjoy a banana chocolate chunk muffin while sitting out in front of the laboriously trendy Clinton Street Bakery, we had to listen to three pointedly scruffy (in a meticulously cultivated sort of way) hipsters earnestly discuss the best way to address people. The ever-popular "man" was deemed too antiquated and "brother" was considered too presumptuous, but all three agreed that "homie" was the perfect term. "That's what I call the customers at my Brooklyn record shop," beamed the one with his back to me. I really wanted to butt in to express my pronounced disdain for the term "homie," but as I said in this post, I'm trying to cut down on that sort of thing. Anyway, it's never a dull day in the EV/LES.

Peg left on relatively very short notice, giving me an afternoon to stock up on necessary groceries and take care of a few important errands. During the course of those, I decided to treat myself to the new, sprawling and lovingly-packaged Jane's Addiction box set, A Cabinet of Curiosities. Lord knows when I'll actually have a chance to play it. It is a lovely to behold, though, I will say that. I'd love to catch them on that tour with Nine Inch Nails that's coming up, but I somewhat strenuously doubt I'll be able to, alas.

Peg's due home -- hopefully -- on Sunday, but I told her to take all the time she needed. If my stamina and metal-state maintain, I'll have more stuff up here shortly. Otherwise, you can probably find me on the streets of the East Village.