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.”
I.M. Sony
Sony BMG moves to old CAA digs
Music unit takes over Beverly Hills space
By PHIL GALLO
An iconic Beverly Hills office building that became a white elephant in the weak commercial real estate market finally has a tenant.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment will relocate its West Coast headquarters to the former CAA building in January. The diskery, whose U.S. headquarters are on Madison Avenue in New York, is now housed in Santa Monica.
Personnel from Sony’s and BMG’s labels, publishing and licensing will move into the 65,000-square-foot space, which has been empty since CAA left for its new HQ in Century City in 2007. Sony BMG has signed a 10-year lease on the property.
The edifice had few interested parties since the asking price — reportedly $5 per square foot — was mighty steep for a building whose entire first floor consists of lobby space featuring a Roy Lichtenstein painting so huge that it cannot be removed. In addition, it was clearly designed for one company to occupy the entire building, so it was not feasible to convert it into a traditional office building with multiple tenants.
Designed by I.M. Pei — his first project on the West Coast — and built for $25 million in 1989, the CAA building became so closely associated with Michael Ovitz and his regime that the current CAA chiefs made no secret that their move to new digs in Century City was about making a fresh start. Ovitz remains a landlord of the marble structure at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards.
Emily’s Beautifully Strange Illustrator
Nix Turner’s In Vein Art Show
Nicomi “Nix” Turner, senior illustrator for Emily the Strange, proudly debuts her solo work at the “In Vein” show at Gallery Extraña, 2912 Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA. The show runs from July 11 to August 30, 2008. Pictured: The Little Birds Lied
Credits: Courtesy of Nicomi Turner
Experience Vocal Dance
The Godfather’s Soul For Sale
Christie’s prepares for the James Brown Collection auction at their auction house at 20 Rockefeller Plaza. Different colored ‘Sex’ jumpsuits are for sale.
Credits: Rosier/News
Folio Cornholio at The Folger
Missing Shakespeare Knocks on Folger’s Door
English Book Dealer Arrested in Theft
By David Montgomery and Mary Jordan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 12, 2008; A01
The man dressed a little flashy for a rare-book guy. British accent. He picked Monday, June 16, to go to the library — the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill. No warning, no appointment. Out of his bag, he pulled an old book. Flimsy, no binding, big pages. Said he wanted the Folger book detectives to check it out.
Could it be genuine 400-year-old Shakespeare? he wondered.
Funny he should ask.
So begins the final chapter of the antiquarian police procedural that ended yesterday across the ocean in Durham, England, with the arrest of a 51-year-old book dealer in the theft 10 years ago of a volume of Shakespeare’s collected plays, published in 1623 and worth about $2.5 million, as appraised by the Folger.
The copy of the famous First Folio — cited by scholars as perhaps the most important printed edition in the English language — had been lifted from Durham University in northeast England.
The Folger’s sleuthing determined that the old book was genuine all right — and as hot as a pawned diamond tiara.
Shakespeare fans and rare-book lovers on both sides of the pond hailed the break in the case. Students of human behavior could only scratch their heads.
Why would someone bring a stolen Shakespeare to the place where the theft was most likely to be detected? Folger has the largest collection of printed Shakespeare, including 79 of the 230 First Folios known to exist.
Did he not know it was stolen? Was he trying to get the Folger people to authenticate it so he could sell it here, not knowing that everyone in Shakespeare world was on the lookout for the notorious “missing Durham First Folio”?
Wee-Wee Keepy-Uppy
Hellboy’s Back
Devil May Care About Hellboy II
Big Red returns in a mindless, revved-up sequel
By Chuck Wilson
Hollywood’s Endless Superhero Summer rolls on with the arrival of Hellboy II: The Golden Army from Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro, but before this review goes any further, I must confess—head hanging low in shame—that I haven’t read a comic book since I was 12 years old. That means I’ve never read a Hellboycomic, the first of which appeared in 1993 (when I was well past 12). In fact, I’m not so sure I’d even heard of the big red lug until 2004, when del Toro made the firstHellboy movie, although I bet at the time I pretended that I knew all about him. These days, not reading comics and graphic novels marks one as a pop-culture loser, which goes to show you how topsy-turvy the world is—in my day, comic-book kids got beat up.
A primer then, for the secretly uninitiated: Hellboy, or “Red,” as his friends call him (played by Ron Perlman in the films), is a demon from Hell (literally) who entered this earthly realm when Hitler’s minions opened a portal to you-know-where while attempting to form an alliance with the Big Guy down below. Rescued by the Allies and raised by a gentle British professor (John Hurt), Hellboy has burnt-red skin, a long tail, thick horns on his forehead (filed down to stubs), and a massive right arm made of stone—the “Right Hand of Doom” in creator Mike Mignola’s comic. Red packs a mean right punch, but luckily, raised on Howdy Doody and Santa Claus, he’s fighting on the side of man, not with the evildoers who keep coming up from Hell to slay us all. Score one for nurture versus nature.
