sock

Today's Links:

Get Your Travel On!

Sock has travelled to 40 out of the 50 states! That's 80 percent.

There's this great website that lets you see where you've been. You can also do a map of where you've visited in the world. I'd show you mine, but it's horribly depressing. I need to get out more.

Abandoned Stations is a fascinating guide to all the old subway stations in New York that have gone unused for decades but still exist as signposts of another New York. I had no idea there were so many. I'm pretty convinced that there is an alterna-city here - a city with its own subways and buildings and [mole] people, and the two never converge - only glimpse each other out of the windows of speeding subway trains.

Good News! Good News!

Joshua Marston wins Audience Award at Sundance '04!

I usually avoid doing personal posts (you know, stalkers and all), but I am so jubilant at this news that I just can't keep it in. My friend and former classmate, Joshua (we in the know call him "Josh", and on special occasions, "JJ") Marston, won the highly coveted Audience Award last night at Sundance for his lyrical, riveting film, "Maria Full of Grace".

The film is about a young Colombian woman who, through unfortunate circumstance, becomes a drug "mule". HBO and Fine Line will be releasing it in theaters later this year, so go see it ya'll. I'm not sure how a Jewish guy from California ended up making such a detailed, intimate portrait of a young woman in South America (where it was largely shot), but I guess all his "research" down there really paid off.

Yea, JJ!

IN ADDITION to all this greatness, another super classmate of ours, Debra Granik, won the VERY VERY prestigious Jury Directing Award at Sundance for her fim about a couple trying to kick their drug habit, "Down to the Bone".

Congratulations, Josh and Debra! I don't know what Debra's next project will be, but I heard that Josh is developing a film called "Coiffing Adventures".

Waaaaaaah....

Helmut Newton Died Jan. 24, 2004. This is like a punch in the gut to the civilized world. Helmut Newton had an innate knack for producing provocative and enticing pictures - images you felt you shouldn't look at but couldn't tear your eyes off of. He tapped into subconscious fantasies most people don't dare admit.

From his young days as a Jew fleeing from Nazi Germany in 1938 to his final days, Helmut always led an exciting life of international sophistication. Even his death was glamorous - he lost control of his Caddy while leaving the Chateau Marmont and crashed into a wall.

The Chateau Marmont was also the place where John Belusi died from an overdose, and Jim Morrison swung from a drainpipe in an effort to get into his room. And, of course, it's the only place SOCK stays while in L.A.

As Catherine Denueve said about Newton,

"Quand on fait des photos avec Helmut Newton, on ressemble plus à l'univers de Newton qu'à soi-même. Curieusement, il reste toujours une forme de mystère dans les photos de Newton, même dans les plus osées, les plus crues." Touche, Katie.

Lord of the Rings - not over!

I know, I felt the same way too. When I walked out of the theater after "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", my heart ached with a poignant nostalgia. No more? How could I live with no more Aragorn?

Sigh.

Well, I have a solution. Shadowfax. Who? Shadowfax! Gandalf's horse! They could totally make a new trilogy about him (with Aragorn, of course). Isn't it every girl's dream to, when needing a ride (heh), merely walk outside, whistle, and have a gorgeous, strappping horse gallop up, ready to whisk you to the ends of the earth? Trust me, people would see this movie. Whose heart doesn't skip a beat at the sight of Shadowfax?

I really don't care who's back in the Shire. All I know is that peace never lasts, and when it comes to an end, Shadowfax will be waiting. Lemme tell you, goodbye doesn't mean forever.

Today's Links:

Swing batter! (Yeti and penquin) from kottke.org

I was frozen in place by this picture by Loretta Lux that's in this week's New Yorker. She has a show opening today at Milo, 552 West 24th Street. Once I overcame my lockjaw, I checked out her website, Lux, which has additional spellbinding pictures that remind me simultaneously of "The Shining" and a Bjork video.

Things I love/Things I hate v. 4

Things I love:

The "Ellen" Show. How come no one is talking about how wonderful this show is? Especially the first ten minutes! I cannot imagine anyone else I would like to watch dance on a daily basis, but somehow Ellen pulls it off with a charming combination of self-aware goofiness and true flavah. Plus, come on, you have to hand it to this woman for going through some hard times Hollywood-style and coming back to have the year of her life - "Finding Nemo" and her own show! Oh Ellen, I will never forsake you again.

Crispy bacon.

Things I hate:

People who insist on humming tunelessly ad nauseum. (NB: this is far, far worse if it is done in my airspace first thing in the morning, pre-coffee).

Let Freedom Ring!

Trust me, you will not regret running to the newsstand now and picking up the new issue of "Vanity Fair". I know January is typically when magazines get all skinny and really have nothing interesting to report, because, let's face it, nothing interesting ever happens between January and March. You might as well close up shop after New Year's Eve.

But the new issue of "Vanity Fair": OOH LA LA! First off, lovely pictures of Gwennie, who typically leaves me with a cold, faint sense of class envy, and, whoa, I never knew that Gaughin had horrible eczema and died of syphilis!

So that's all good, but my favorite element of this issue is the consistent and daring theme of Bloomberg bashing. I guess I forgot we live in a free country (certainly easy to forget in today's New York), because I was pleasantly astonished by the overt attacks on Bloomie's administration. The editor, Graydon Carter, has been fined three times for having an EMPTY ashtray in his OFFICE (do you see what I mean about New York these days?). Kudos to Carter for keeping that ashtray, and displaying it prominantly in his photo. As Carter says in his editor's letter, "Bloomberg is in dire need of a refresher course on the urbanity of New York and the libertarian groove of a city that has nutured jazz and modernism and punk."

It gets better: Christopher Hitchens goes on a one-man crime spree to register his objection to all the new, draconian ordinances. He rides his bike without his feet on the pedals, he puts a bag on the subway seat next to him, he sits on a milkcrate, and he feeds pigeons in Central Park - all finable ($200!!) offenses. As he says, "This current Niagara of pettiness and random victimization may well be Bloomberg's attempt at a wannabe reputation as heroic crime-fighter and disciplinarian. Who knows what goes on in the tiny, constipated chambers of his mind [OMG!]? All we know for certain is that one of the world's most broad-minded and open cities is now in the hands of a picknose control freak."

Much better than I could have said it myself. I'm so glad that Vanity Fair has addressed this trend that has been creeping me out for a while but seems to go relatively unreported. It's like the walls are closing in on you -- not unlike that scene in "Star Wars". I have to say, I was recently in Atlanta and it felt like the most liberated, freedom-loving city in the world to me merely because I wasn't constantly looking over my shoulder.

I Have a Disease

I am a refreshoholic. I am! I am constantly checking for new email. Sometimes I will even check for new email as I am composing an email. What is wrong with me? Even just this second, I checked to see if I had new email. And what, you might be wondering, do you do when you get new email? Well, I'll tell you: Nothing. I read it and then check to see if I got new email.

Somebody help me.

Today's Links:

He needs to get rid of that necklace and the M&M boxer shorts
My next purchase: Mr. Misty - a no-effort-required humidifier!

Come Home, Spalding Gray

Spalding Gray, the brilliant, depressive actor-writer, was reported missing on Sunday; he has not been seen since CHRISTMAS. No one close to him finds this surprising or seems particularly concerned. Said his brother, Rockwell Gray: "I wouldn't say he was in a happy state, but it wasn't unusual. He's been in a fairly depressed condition for some time."

Evidently, his depression worsened after a bad car accident in Ireland in 2001; he attempted suicide in 2002. Here is what he said in the Harvard Gazette about his accident:

"[It happened] June 22 in Ireland. God, I don't remember the territory. Just northeast of Dublin, dairy country. We were five adults in the car stopped to turn right on this very narrow road and this guy came around the corner in a van. He hit us. I was in the back seat and [my partner] Kathie was driving. I flew forward, impacting my head on hers. Her seat came back. The engine went right into the cabin. I think what happened was the seat pushed my femur, dislocated my hip and fractured my [skull]. Next thing I know I was in a puddle of blood on the road. It was an hour before the ambulance came. It changed my life, the accident. Everything was fine and then five seconds later, I was lying in a puddle of blood."

Yeesh.

I have read his book, Impossible Vacation, twice, and would recommend it to anyone. It's "a convulsively funny, unexpectedly moving novel about a man eternally searching for a moment of protected pleasure even as he is permanently incapable of finding it." In other words, a story about all of us.

New York City - Actor-Writer Spalding Gray Reported Missing