Would You Do Yoga In The Nude?
THE NAKED CITY
NUDES FLASH: IN-BUFF STUFF IS HUGE!
By ADAM NICHOLS
Welcome to Nude York City.
Some folks are stripping down to escape the scorching summer temperatures – but others aren’t waiting ’til they hit the area’s clothing-optional beaches.
The au naturel look is catching on at city restaurants, a Midtown yoga club and even a stand-up comedy joint.
“We’re just more comfortable nude,” said John Ordover, who rents city eateries for dinner parties with a strict dress code – no clothes allowed.
Vote: Would you do Yoga in the buff?
“We’re not out to shock or put on a public spectacle. We want only to do things that other people do in the way that we are most comfortable doing them. That, for us, is without clothes,” he said.
About 50 diners – whose motto is “no hot soup” – regularly turn up for Ordover’s monthly meals held at venues including the Mercantile Grill on Pearl Street and Pete’s Downtown in Brooklyn.
“I had such a transformative experience on my own when I did yoga naked rather than clothed,” said Naked Yoga NYC teacher Isis Phoenix. “I wanted to share that.”
The classes have about 10 devotees who have to obey two rules – leave your clothes behind, and bring your own mat.
My Republic for a Pickle
CALIFORNIA COOK
Pickles add punch to summertime meals
WHERE have all the pickles gone?
It wasn’t so long ago that every well-dressed American dinner table was bejeweled with an assortment of them — emerald green tomatoes, ruby red beets and opalescent pearl onions, as well as less glamorous (though certainly no less delicious) okra, mushrooms and watermelon rind. The pickle tray was a standard part of a Sunday supper.
Nowadays, almost the only pickle you’ll find is cucumber. And while there’s nothing wrong with your basic bread-and-butter, half-sour or dill, there are so many other possibilities to explore.
What about radishes, for example, pickled pink, with a refreshing sweet-tart bite to match their crisp texture? Or tangy peppers, yellow turmeric-stained zucchini or even surprisingly savory pickled grapes?
First, a little definition: A pickle is a fruit or a vegetable that is preserved through acidity. Because most harmful bacteria have a hard time surviving in a low-pH environment, pickling was an important part of preserving the harvest in the days before refrigeration.
THOUGH ordinary, white distilled vinegar can be used for most pickles, you can get a different effect by substituting apple cider or Asian rice vinegar. Similarly, don’t feel bound to the common pickling spices of mustard, peppercorns, dill and their brethren. Try using cloves, allspice or cinnamon, fresh ginger or dried chiles.
[ click to continue reading about pickles at the Los Angeles Times ]
Avenging Poetry
Lumley attacks ‘obscure’ new poetry
The actress has been lambasted as old and out of touch for her controversial views on modern verse
Amelia Hill , social affairs correspondent, The Observer
When Joanna Lumley agreed to pen an introduction to a collection of poems, she probably thought she was simply doing a favour for an unknown poet in need of a publicity boost. Instead, the Absolutely Fabulous star has caused controversy by publishing views on modern poetry that have offended some of Britain’s best-known writers.
Rather than limiting her comments to the book in question, Lumley attacked contemporary poetry, dismissing ‘so much’ of it as maddeningly obscure and, at worst, self-indulgent. At the other extreme, she argued that less demanding poetry risked becoming humdrum and commonplace.
The actress was a judge for the Booker Prize in 1985 and led readings of Sir John Betjeman’s poetry at the 1996 unveiling of a stone tablet to the late Poet Laureate at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Lumley wrote the controversial introduction to Liz Cowley’s forthcoming book, A Red Dress and Other Poems. She went on to say: ‘It is a rare modern poem that achieves the balance between being challenging and accessible.’
Lumley praises Cowley for preferring to call herself a writer than a poet: ‘Liz would never dream of describing herself as a “poet”. She even dislikes the very word “poetry” because she feels there is a divisive ring to it, as if the genre were up there on a rarefied pedestal.’
But her comments have drawn the wrath of many of Britain’s leading poets. Ian McMillan, presenter of BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, poet in residence at Barnsley football club and a contender for the next Poet Laureate, accused Lumley of being ill-informed. ‘I suspect that she hasn’t read very widely because she’s ignoring the fact that poetry in the 21st century is a broad church,’ he said.
Review of James Frey & Terry Richardson @ The Strand
Frey Goes Arty: ‘The Idea Was To Do A Cool Book That Would Piss People Off’
James Frey (right) and Terry Richardson grin at the prospect of ticking folks off at their book talk.
Controversy-friendly author James Frey and photographer Terry Richardson don’t much believe in rules, so the two intentional outsiders teaming up on a book/photo project makes a sort of sense. For those who don’t know that Frey is co-partner of Half Gallery with Andy Spade and Bill Powers, the move may surprise, but for the writer himself, it was just a matter of time.
“I’m much more part of the art world than I am the literary world,” Frey said before the duo’s Thursday night talk at Manhattan’s Strand Bookstore. “I wanted to make a cool, sort of radical, fun art book. I have no interest in being called a memoirist. I’m a writer.”
Frey envisioned Wives, Wheels, Weapons in the vein of late 19th- and early 20th-century collaborations between writers and artists such as Baudelaire and Matisse. “When I was in Paris, I saw these books and thought they were the coolest fucking things I’d ever seen,” Frey told us. “I went over to Terry’s studio and said, ‘Dude, you want to do a book?'”
Publisher/friend to Frey and Richardson John McWhinnie moderated the two, who wore matching white t-shirts and khakis. “Moneybags McWhinnie” (so dubbed because he financed the project, i.e. put Frey, Richardson and his “camera club” up at the Chateau Marmont for five days in L.A.), saw the book’s brief chapters as standalone vignettes.
“I was drawn to what is emblematic of L.A.: car culture, the immersion of highways and being stuck on freeways. It was also the idea of L.A. culture, gang culture, East coast, West coast,” he said of Wheels and Weapons. “Then, what else to do? When James told me they decided to edit out the passage we called ‘Wives,’ I said, ‘That’s what we’ve got to do. That’s the trifecta.’ Terry [was] telling a story in pictures that James was telling in words.”
Was the alliterative title deliberate, we wanted to know? “No, it was a funny title,” shrugged Frey, “sort of ridiculous and telling.”
Friend/photographer Richard Prince shot the cover for Frey’s recent bestseller, Bright Shiny Morning, but “because Wives, Wheels, Weapons was a bit more salacious [with a] steamy subtext to it, we really wanted a Richard Prince girlfriend straight out of the Sunset Strip — 1980s, big hair bands, all of it,” McWhinnie said, describing limited-edition book’s hardcover image.
The softcover shot came out of a photo shoot at a gun club in L.A. “Terry just poured out all these casings on the floor and laid this .44 Magnum on it, and the casings and the Magnum were just sparkling. It was almost like guns as jewels. It was beautiful and fucked up,” according to McWhinnie.
Photos for the “Wives” section were shot at the home of Apocalypse Nowscreenplay writer John Milius. Milius and his wife happened to be avid IRA members, so the ’70s-era style house (a “fucking armory,” as Richardson puts it) came stocked with ammunition and shooting trophies. Over 150 rolls of film were produced during a series of 17-hour days spent with up to 25 models arrayed before seven cameras.
“I just sort of make it up as I go along,” Richardson said, swigging from an unmarked plastic flask. “My dad always told me, ‘When you don’t know what to do with people, just lean them up against a wall.'” We made a mental note to try that the next time we had to snap away.
“The idea was just to do a cool book that would piss people off,” Frey said. “People who appreciate what Terry and I do would love it and people who don’t, would hate it.” So, what’s next for the pair of provocateurs?
“I’m working on another book and a TV project,” Frey said. “The book’s about a 32-year old secular Jew in New York who comes to believe he’s the messiah.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking of doing Ulysses next,” joked Richardson.
Sex In The TV With America’s Top Artist
Sarah Jessica Parker lands show at Bravo
Aspiring artists to compete to produce various artwork
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Sarah Jessica Parker (Getty Images photo) |
Sarah Jessica Parker’s art competition reality show has found a home at Bravo.
The network has picked up “American Artist,” from Parker’s Pretty Matches production company and wunderkin producers Magical Elves, as part of its development slate. Bravo is expected to announce the deal Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.
The hourlong show has been described by the Elves team of Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz as a “Project Runway”-style competition series that takes on the art world. Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. The network declined to comment.
Castrated Suzuki For Sale
New Breed Of Non-Flatulating GM Sheep Recycles Old Technology To Curb Global Warming
Pedi by Petra
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Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.Pedi by Pervy
Mooning Mass Transit
Mass bum rap
Police were called to break up a mass “mooning” after 8,000 turned up to bare their bottoms at passing trains.
The Mooning Amtrak event in the California town of Laguna Niguel was shut down for the first time in its 29-year history after complaints that people were showing more than their bums, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Jim Amormino, a police spokesman, said officials deemed the event out of control after some mooners began taking all their clothes off and women started lifting up their T-shirts to flash passing trains.
The tradition is said to stem from a pub dare in 1979 when a drinker at the nearby Mugs Away Saloon promised his friends drinks if they went out to the railway line and mooned the next passing train.
Many rose to the challenge and the mass moon became a regular event, complete with a website, moonamtrak.org.
The crowd was broken up around 3pm but some mooners returned later and continued dropping their trousers into the night at the Amtrak and Metrolink trains which pass every 20 minutes.
In the website’s frequently asked questions section, organisers say it is “okay” to “decorate your butt” and encourage obese attendees to come along: “Yes yes, please ‘moon’ with us. We need people like you for the extra high intensity mooning you can provide.”
Why China Is Now The #1 Importer Of Cars
Slaughtering Horses Because Turtles and Shrubs Are More Important
On Mustang Range, a Battle on Thinning the Herd
Marilyn Newton for The New York Times
A federal bureau has a captive herd of 30,000 mustangs and is proposing a euthanasia program.
GERLACH, Nev. — Five mustangs pounded across the high desert recently, their dark manes and tails giving shape to the wind. Pursued by a helicopter, they ran into a corral — and into the center of the emotional debate over whether euthanasia should be used to thin a captive herd that already numbers 30,000.
The champions of wild mustangs have long portrayed them as the victims of ranchers who preferred cattle on the range, middlemen who wanted to make a buck selling them for horsemeat and misfits who shot them for sport. But the wild horse today is no longer automatically considered deserving of extensive protections.
Some environmentalists and scientists have come to see the mustangs, which run wild from Montana to California, as top-of-the-food-chain bullies, invaders whose hooves and teeth disturb the habitats of endangered tortoises and desert birds.
Even the language has shifted. In a 2006 article in Audubon magazine, wild horses lost their poetry and were reduced to “feral equids.”
[ click to read more about these inhuman horse killers at NYTimes.com ]
The Critics Behind The Curtain
The Reviewers Come In From the Cold
At Publishers’ Weekly, A Tradition of Anonymity is Abandoned; Herewith, Our Brief Review of the Reviewers
BY LEON NEYFAKH
Getty Images
From an engraving depicting an American alderman of the 19th Century; he doesn’t seem to like the book much
A review in Publisher’s Weekly tends to be a book’s first—some of the titles in last week’s issue won’t be on sale until the end of September—and for this reason, the dozens of reviews printed there each week, at about 200 words, are regarded as influential.
A “starred review” is a prize—a guarantee, almost, that booksellers, librarians, and book editors across the country will all take a look at a title when they get the galley in the mail. No guarantee that they’ll go for it—not even editor-in-chief Sara Nelson would ever argue that PW unilaterally sets the tone for a book’s reception—but in a field as crowded as this one, a mere look is a valuable thing.
Thus the reviewers of PW, who do not get bylines, have spoken as one as if from behind a drape for the past 136 years, their authority drawn from the classic (if not a bit fossilized!)PW brand and reinforced by the anonymity they are afforded by the magazine’s no-bylines policy.’
Who are these individuals? Enthusiasts, mainly. Schoolteachers, professors, stay-at-home moms, authors. It takes all kinds. We looked a handful of them up on Google, corresponded with a couple, and came up with some crude bios. Here’s an assortment….
When Late Night Was King
Andy Kaufman and Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler on Letterman
Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia Talk Tripping With Tom Snyder
Sam Kinison’s ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ on Tonight
S.Darko Scores Score
British singer Ed Harcourt scoring ‘Donnie Darko’ sequel
by Shirley Halperin
Categories: Film, Movie Biz, Music, Music Biz
Ed Harcourt will provide the score for the forthcoming Donnie Darko sequel, S. Darko. The British singer-songwriter told EW.com at LA’s Roxy last week, where he opened up for the Greg Dulli-Mark Lanegan fronted nü-gaze outfit, The Gutter Twins, that while he never met director Chris Fisher, he submitted three pieces of music for consideration after reading the script, and was delighted — if not a little surprised — to learn that he got the gig. The movie is slated for release in 2009, but Harcourt is already hard at work on a variety of soundscapes influenced by the music of Autechre, Aphex Twin, Phillip Glass, and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. His goal: to make it “surreal and psychedelic, just like the movie.”
A Cheap and Frittersome Re-Post For A Saturday
Fire Hazard My Striped Red Ass
Runnin’ Scared
Painted Into a Corner Over a $576-a-Month Chelsea Apartment
Fire hazard? Philip Sherrod is a triple threat to the senses.
By Maria Luisa Tucker
When Philip Sherrod mentions at regular intervals that he is “the most prolific painter of any century,” you assume it’s an exaggeration. That is, until you walk into his apartment.
The spacious fourth-floor flat on West 24th Street is a dizzying tangle of colorful faces and bodies. Bold portraits and streetscapes are nailed to the ceiling and doors and stacked 10 feet deep against the walls. In 48 years of living in the apartment, Sherrod estimates that he has accumulated a collection numbering some 5,000 of his own paintings. The walk through successively smaller doorways that lead to the back room—where hundreds more oil-painted faces peer at one another—gives you the feeling that you’ve fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole. Even the toilet seat is painted with stripes and red hearts.
It’s a fitting abode for Sherrod, the 72-year-old founder of an alliance of artists called the Street Painters and a teacher at both the Art Students League and the National Academy School of Fine Arts. But to the city government—and Sherrod’s landlord—all that canvas and paint adds up to a fire hazard.
Vladi Said Knock You Out
| New sport combines boxing and chess |
| Jul 16 02:03 PM US/Eastern By PATRICK McGROARTY Associated Press Writer
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The Return of Rubenesque?
Teen Chic is Tired; Women Are Back!
BY SIMON DOONAN
Women’s bodies are revolting! I don’t mean that the way it sounds. The girls of the world have simply had enough. They are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. 
Anarchy and change are in the air.
But what exactly is going on? Is the super-skinny trend coming to an end? Are real women—remember back when being naturally curvaceous was good thing?—about to make a giant comeback? Are Michelle Obama’s arms too thick or too thin? Will Angelina Jolie’s womb continue to burst with babies? Is the anorexic-but-busty trend—that ho look against which I inveighed in my most recent book,Eccentric Glamour (Simon and Schuster, $24), finally beating a retreat? So many questions!
Let’s start with the ho trend. All over Manhattan, fashion folk are fizzing in their cubicles over the June issue of Italian Vogue. Yes, I did say cubicles! Calm down! Not everyone in the world of fashion has a giant, sleek chrome and white Ugly Betty office. I myself am the proud occupant of a small, gray modular structure. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Au contraire!
The Greatest Actress In The World Amazes Again
Helen Mirren the bikini queen reigns supreme at 63
Most women only a few days away from their 63rd birthday would be steering well clear of the beach. And if they did venture there, it would be in the most modest of concealing attire. Dame Helen Mirren, however, is happy to flaunt her enviable curves and flat stomach in a bikini.
How does she do it? Dame Helen Mirren looked sensational while holidaying in Puglia, Italy this week
Why France No Longer Has Any Influence on Western Civilization
Ich bin Lou Berliner
Berlin is not a record for schmoozing and sun. It’s a concept record best savored in solitary, in the fetal position, while slurping on a bottle of wine. The doomed love story of addicts Jim and Caroline, Berlin‘s 10 songs cycle through the couple’s initial drug-euphoric enchantment, their violent betrayals, their fatal collapse. 
But when the album first came out in 1973, as the startlingly somber follow-up to Reed’s Bowie-produced glam-rock triumph Transformer (“Walk on the Wild Side”), Berlin was largely dismissed as a creative and commercial flop, an indulgent fallout from Reed’s messy first divorce.
Things change: 30 years later, pieces of the Berlin Wall are for sale on the Internet, and Lou’s German-junkie ode has been recast as a masterpiece. Reed had never performed Berlin live in full until 2006, with a landmark five-day stretch at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Director/artist Julian Schnabel brought cameras to commit the performance to celluloid; the record’s original producer, Bob Ezrin, was enlisted to oversee. Redemption all around.
Don’t You Love To Watch Her Strut
If all the world is a stage, then Naomi Campbell is the actress, director and producer. There is no denying her feline features, predatory strut and larger than life attitude makes for great images. Her face just lights up and angles to the photographer like a match made in heaven. Tantrums aside, this woman knows how to work the camera to her advantage. She has stood the test of time with this inspired shoot by Mario Sorrenti for V Magazine.
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Rejoicing The Lip Muff Renaissance
Below Nose, It Grows!
There’s no question that the mustache is having a moment. Walk through downtown (on the East Side, please!) or stroll along any Brooklyn thoroughfare, and at least a half dozen 20-to-early-30-something guys will saunter by sporting some kind of lip awning. Whether big, thick, bushy beasts or filmy, sparse little squiggles, mustaches are rising once more from the stubble.
And who is that mustached man? He appears to be a pretty ballsy breed, having bypassed the beard, that bush of whiskers grown by professors, hippies, urban wannabe lumberjacks and lazy guys who read too much Nietzsche. He’s not afraid to bust in on the territory of blue-collar cops and workers, villains (think Hitler), old-timey bank robbers and creepy dudes to claim his very own parcel of hair-land. And he’s willing to express himself, whether with a pencil-thin growth above the lip à la John Waters, or a broom-bottom Mr. Monopoly number that looks like a disguise.
Socratis Mamalis Jr. wears what he calls a “molester ’stache,” a sparse, slightly pubescent mustache that lends him a striking resemblance to JD Samson, the guitarist from feminist dance-punk band Le Tigre, who cultivates a patch of pitch-black peach fuzz above her lip.Mr. Mamalis, 24, who goes by “Soci” or “Crates,” explained during a recent indie rock show at South Street Seaport that he started growing his mustache about a month ago from “boredom slash the fact that I look like I’m 12.
“Basically, I grew it so I could ask, who wants a mustache ride?” he said with a wicked grin. He works in sales for a printing company. “I’ve noticed the ladies love it.”
The Nose Broom Now, and Then
There is something about the mustache. It adds mystery; having one says, I’m masculine! Or, I’m a rebel! A few years ago, the mustache was largely referred to as ironic, as in “ironic mustache,” since (besides baseball players, of course) it showed up mostly on sleazeball celebs like photographer Terry Richardson and American Apparel’s notorious founder, Dov Charney, both of whom seemed eager to look as repulsive as possible. But recently, the novelty of the ironic lip sweater has faded. The mustache has perhaps become a more stately, classic … even admirable facial fashion. Like high-waisted short shorts, or a muscle shirt, it takes guts to wear one.
Heath Lives – With Legs That Will Go On Forever
James Frey Reading w/ Terry Richardson @ The Strand NYC, This Wednesday July 16
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Appearing at Strand July 16, 7pm 12th St. & Broadway Take either the N R Q W 4 5 6 L train to Union Square, walk 2 blocks South to 12th Street |
Bright Shiny Morning: Wives Wheels Weaponsby James Frey PUBLISHER JMC & GHB EDITIONS©2008 ISBN-10 0979507774 FORMAT Wrappers From Strand BookstorePHOTOGRAPHS BY TERRY RICHARDSON. 4to. 4to. Wrappered issue, LIMITED to 1000 copies (of a total edition of 2000). Includes the first appearance of Frey’s “Wives,” which, though it will appear in the English edition of Bright Shiny Morning, was omitted from the American edition. Consists of three vignettes from Frey’s novel, which have been interpreted again in photographs by Terry Richardson. A provocative collaboration from two artists known for their depiction of life’s seamier aspects. As New in wrappers.
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Why? Because It’s There. And He Can. In 4min Flat.
What White Men Like That Their White Women Like
Wise to white jeans
 Stretch Trouser Jeans from David Kahn Jeans, $168 at nordstrom.com |
Thanks to Diddy and his famous annual White Party in the Hamptons, Mercedes Bender received at least four invitations a month last summer to similar parties, and expects even more this year.
“With so many people stressed out about the economy, (people) are just finally glad that summer is here and are trying to do it really big and have a good time,” she said.
For a summertime last-minute date or a ladies’ night out, Bender’s go-to outfit is white jeans with a bold tank, dressy heels or sandals, and bold jewelry.
“It never disappoints!” Bender said.
Yet she observes on her denim site, jeanotype.com (LINK), that many women don’t fully appreciate the power of white jeans, which make up only about 15 percent of purchases.
She doubted them at first, too.
“It took me a while, but I found both flattery and practicality in my low-rise skinny Siwy’s,” Bender said. “They are one of the few ankle lengths that a petite woman such as myself can wear without chopping off height. I always wear them with heels, but I can easily transition to the flats that I keep in my car when my heel expiration time occurs. Plus, I don’t have to worry about stepping on the back of the pant legs and ruining them. The low rise is flattering for me – I have a shorter torso – and Siwy’s rounded back pocket makes my rear look great!”
The Fantastic Piano
The Fantastic Piano is a musical instrument that makes a mystic and beautiful atmosphere when you play it. Water, pumps, glitter and lights react as you conduct your own ‘water orchestra’. IR sensors detect your movements and translate them into a beautiful piece of music that you can manipulate through your motion and proximity to the instrument. Created by So-young Park, Cho Rong Hwang, Shin-Yi Huang and Laurel Boylen.
For more information or to arrange for a demonstration of The Fantastic Piano, please visit http://itp.nyu.edu/~crh272/fantasticpiano/
Which Side Are You On, Boy?
The NYPD Rips Up Rappers
Rebel Diaz and their hip-hop politics run afoul of the cops
By Tom Robbins
Wednesday, July 7 2008
On June 18, a pair of brothers named Rodrigo and Gonzalo Venegas decided to take a friend visiting from Chicago for a city tour. The brothers Venegas, who comprise two-thirds of the activist hip-hop group known as Rebel Diaz, are big on the Bronx, and one of the sites they wanted to show their pal was the wonderful wall mural dedicated to the late rapper Big Pun on Westchester Avenue in Hunts Point.
Gonzalo Venegas, 22, whose rap name is G1, tells what happened when they reached the corner of Westchester and Simpson Street: “We see police picking up boxes of street vendors’ product and throwing it away. This one vendor was looking all bewildered and helpless. We approached him, and he says in Spanish that he doesn’t understand why they are taking his stuff.”
The pair asked the police if it was all right for them to translate. The cops, Gonzalo says, didn’t seem to have a problem. One of the officers explained that there were health-department violations, but others became belligerent, he says, and told the brothers to butt out. This degenerated further when the brothers asked for badge numbers.
It is important here to understand that in addition to being rappers, the brothers Venegas—whose Chilean parents fled into exile after Pinochet’s coup—are also organizers. In fact, the slogan of their group is: “If Hip Hop organized, the whole world would be in trouble.”