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April 30, 2006
Fat Girls
It's fun to thumb one's nose against certain industries, especially big music (by music piracy) and Hollywood. It's not quite as easy to pirate Hollywood's product, but until that happens, I still have little desire to pay a dime to see the overhyped, uncreative gas regularly emanated from so many of the studios. Just yesterday, Joe Morgenstern ranted in the Wall St Journal:
Shoddiness has been radically redefined by a surging stream of studio swill -- not just modern counterparts of those hapless old B pictures, but big-budget, big-deal productions that would have been judged, no more than a decade ago, as simply unprofessional.I'm not surprised that the studios are skipping critics screenings when some of these atrocities hit the screen. (And then, it should be said, sometimes hit the top of the box office charts; today's movies and moviegoers often deserve each other.)
It's interesting to occasionally see a movie not made by a big studio with a billion-dollar budget. Yesterday we went to see Fat Girls at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The star (Rodney) and director is a 20-year-old boy growing up in the Texas Bible belt. His best friend is a 300-pound girl, though the film argues that there's a Fat Girl in each of us. Meanwhile, the girlfriend falls for a nerdy Cuban refugee while Rodney starts a relationship with a dashing British boy.
For a high-schoolers' film, it was absolutely amazing. The quality of the sets, the camerawork, and the editing was excellent. Perhaps 100 extras were involved, probably without pay. Rodney's mother, a woman so godly she names the food in the family dinner for bible verses, turned in the best performance. She invites friends over for a movie, presses play, and finds that one of Rodney's gay porns is in the VCR. The old Bible-thumper finally confronts her son and asks in a perfectly straight voice, "Why is there a video in the VCR containing men engaging in asshole rimming and mutual fellatio?"
Unfortunately much of the comedy was improved, and almost none of the plot elements tie together in the end. The movie became like a series of stream-of-conscious diary entries with some gratuitious masturbation and gay sex thrown in. The ending seems to come as if the Director realized his camcorder's memory stick was almost full and they had to quickly film an ending with the last two minutes of tape. I hope they remake the movie in 10 years when they've had a chance to reflect on their high school years and find out what it really means--which experiences really defined them as people vs. what was funny at the time or an opportunity to film juvenile toilet humor.
Nonetheless, it was fun to go see a film not made by a giant studio, even if it means one has to search a little harder to make sense of it. And it's enjoyable to have the Director and stars take questions after the film, even if it ended at 1.30AM.
Tonight we attend the North American premier of Driving Lessons.
Posted by adrianjo at 11:24 AM
April 29, 2006
Finished
Yesterday was a big day. I finished the coursework for the MBA program. Etienne de Montille, the winemaker we met in Burgundy, joined us for dinner till 1AM, followed by two hours at a lounge. So I woke up at noon, but it's been quite a while since I've been out that late. Coming home so early every night, I was starting to feel like a law student.
Graduation is May 19, followed by a few days at home, a week in Hawai'i, a few days back in NYC, and 4 weeks in Georgia/Armenia/Azerbaijan. This puts us some time in July. We'll see what happens beyond that.
Posted by adrianjo at 01:12 PM
April 27, 2006
Columbia in the WSJ and CNN
The videos from this year's Follies have been making the rounds worldwide again. One video has even been seen on CNN and got a mention in the Wall St. Journal yesterday. It features Glenn Hubbard, the school's Dean, in a spoof of Police's "Every Breath you Take." I discuss the videos further here.
Posted by adrianjo at 06:41 PM
April 23, 2006
America's worst mayor, a month from incineration
America's worst mayor didn't loose his job in yesterday's election, but it's just a matter of time. Ray Nagin, better called Ray No-Noggin, is the New Orleans knucklehead who left 2000 busses swamped in a parking lot rather than use them to evacuate. He's the guy who failed to deliver when his city was destroyed, instead creating a very effective smear campaign against FEMA. He's the guy who has overseen a city plagued by corruption before and after that storm. And he's the racist who declared that New Orleans should be "chocolate." Of course, if a white person wanted his city "vanilla," you can imagine what would happen to him.
No-noggin polled around 39% of the vote in yesterday's New Orleans mayoral election. Because that's less than 50%, there will be a run-off next month. These run-offs are typically very difficult if the incumbent wasn't already very close to 50%. A vote for any opponent is a vote against the incumbent, and 60% of voters voted against the incumbent.
Now with No-Noggin's noggin in the guillotine, he's starting to have second thoughts about the racism stuff.
With turnout apparently low in black precincts, Mr. Nagin appealed for unity after the results were in."If we don't come together as men and women, we will perish as fools," he said. "We must become comfortable with one another."
It's hard to be comfortable with a Mayor who has declared entire ethnic groups (whites, Hispanics, etc.) unwelcome in his city. Even many black voters, who too often appear to vote the way of the lemming, are thinking pragmatically:
Some black voters interviewed here Saturday, dissatisfied with the slow pace of recovery, said they were supporting Mr. Landrieu."We have no direction right now," said Marvin Keelen, who had journeyed from Baton Rouge to vote. "We can't make any decisions."
It's easy to predict how this will play out. No-noggin will get 42% of the vote, complain that black voters were "disenfranchised," moan that the results were rigged (they were rigged, but you gotta rig your way to 50%, not just 42%), get a visit from Jesse Jackson who will scream in public but read No-noggin his political last rites in private, and ultimately retire to the dustbin of history. Good riddance.
Posted by adrianjo at 12:59 PM
April 21, 2006
Economist humour
It started with "Dean Dean Baby," where Columbia's Business School's Dean started rapping his way to world fame. The video circulated the world, and the Dean even received accolades from the Japanese Finance Minister. Hey, when you got a spreadsheet with a built-in solver, you have to be cool.
This year's video was "Every Breath," expressing the Dean's frustration at not being appointed to take Alan Greenspan's place as Federal Reserve Chair. If you're an economist, you'll love it. If not, sorry, it just won't be funny, but maybe you'll enjoy Deirdre's part as a chorus girl.
Posted by adrianjo at 07:47 PM
April 18, 2006
Hi Krishna
Krishna hasn't been mentioned on my blog in a while, and he recently sent me an email wondering if we're still friends. Krishna, you'll always be my buddy, despite what Akshay says about you.
Posted by adrianjo at 08:09 PM
April 15, 2006
Better than floorplan porn
I've been thinking a lot about real estate lately. Real estate is a favorite pass-time with Manhattanites, since almost everyone here spends an insane amount in some form to put a roof over their heads. So why not at least own rather than pay someone else rent?
I decided to look to buy up here in Harlem, where prices are more reasonable, though now even Harlem prices are hitting $600/sf. (In the suburbs, $150/sf is an expensive price.) It has, of course, been a huge pain in the ass already, starting with out-of-date listings, brokers who don't return inquires promptly, tax issues, etc. Corcoran, for one, might have a good reputation, but try getting one of their brokers to reply to an email. Once I finally did get a call back, the place I was looking at is "no longer available," though their website indicates otherwise. I wonder if they didn't bother with me because I used a ".edu" email address and the figured I'm a poor grad student that they don't want to deal with?
Yesterday I paid a visit to 40 Mercer, a new $130M condo project in SoHo. I don't think I'll be moving there anytime soon, but a Columbia guy offered to show us around the site. It's one of those places where they say, "if you have to ask, you can't afford it." A small section of private terrace on the roof starts at $500,000 to buy. The cheapest place *under* a roof is $2.3M, and it has a view of the butt of another building. $2.3M gets you one bedroom, at a price of around $2300/sf.
After $130M is spent building 40 Mercer and the units sold, it's likely that fewer than 20 people will live there full-time. Most units were purchased by out-of-towners as pieds-a-terre, or homes-away-from-home. On one hand, it seems like a giant waste for people to dedicate years of their lives to building a $130M structure for 20 people to live in. And, because of a tax abatement, a resident of a $13M place in 40 Mercer pays less property tax than I would pay if I bought a single floor of a brownstone in Harlem. On the other hand, maybe some resident there needs a house-sitter?
Floorplan porn is fun with this development. Here is Andre Balazs's $10M penthouse floorplan. And here is the $13M pool residence--yes, it has a private rooftop pool and terrace. It also features a 17-foot section of glass wall that is opened and closed with a motor. The owner of this unit is some London hedge fund guy.
The floorplans don't show some of the more obnoxious parts of the development--ok, the most obnoxious thing: the giant blue and red panes of glass in the units. Supposedly the designer thought of Broadway as blue and Mercer St as red, so units fronting those streets have windows that are partially clear, partially red or blue glass. That's obnoxious enough, but the worst is a group of three units that have a giant pane of blue glass covering the best view from the unit. And it's written into your property title that the hideous blue glass stays forever. Small wonder that these four units have been very difficult to sell.
Posted by adrianjo at 08:13 PM
April 13, 2006
A tourist destination that succeeds in spite of itself
As if you needed another reason not to visit Indonesia. Here's the first reason.
Posted by adrianjo at 12:52 PM
April 10, 2006
Taxis spotted in Harlem!
Here in Harlem, and in much of the "outer boros", folks get around by calling a "car service." More typically, and less legally, one flags down an unmarked car on the street, haggles a price, then hopes the driver isn't totally loony. Either way, one winds up in an old Towncar bought on the cheap from the various limo services around town, then driven a few hundred-thousand miles more than any American car was ever designed to go. In fact, there are garages that specialize in keeping Lincoln Towncars on the road for a half-million miles or more. Overall I actually prefer the "car service" system to taxis, since the Towncars don't have that leg-room-eliminating partition and the fee is fixed--no cursing at the meter when the light turns red.
Recently, there have been some cabs sighted! Hell has frozen, and here is proof.
Posted by adrianjo at 09:54 PM
April 09, 2006
Thank you Ted & Nina
It's Zagat New York Survey time, which provides an opportunity to thank the restaurants that provided wonderful experiences over the last year, and to take revenge on the places that were really, truly awful.
I was ready to take revenge on a Times Square tourist trip called Bolzano's, who forced expensive bottled water on our group, when I found out it was closed already and not eligible for voting. But there are some awful New York restaurants that are still around, such as Baldoria, who installed a jukebox next to our table as we ate, then took over two hours to actually deliver the meal.
On the plus side, the survey provides the opportunity to remember some fabulous meals at New York's better restaurants, including Eleven Madison, Pastis, Tao, Indus Valley, Blue Fin, Bello Sguardo, Native, Citrus, Capitale, Fraunces Tavern, and how many can't I remember?
Posted by adrianjo at 12:43 PM
April 07, 2006
More murders in Harlem
Damn, two murders in Harlem last night, one of them just down the street.
MANHATTAN: TWO MEN DIE IN SHOOTINGS Two men were killed and a third man was wounded in two separate shootings in Harlem last night, the police said. ... In the second shooting, which took place around 9 p.m. at 114th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard, Barry Miller, 34, was shot in the head, the police said. Three men fled that scene. There have been no arrests in either case.
Posted by adrianjo at 06:02 PM
April 05, 2006
A fat envelope no more
If today I were a high schooler applying to my undergrad school, I'd probably be rejected. The Wall St Journal reports on unusually low admission figures, but the article only slightly mentions that this is a long-term trend that shows no sign of slowing. The supply of seats at popular universities is flat, while increasing numbers of students from around the world compete for the limited seats.
It used to be easy to get into Harvard if you came from the right prep school and weren't Jewish. Now, the WASPs from Groton and Exeter have to compete against not just middle-class midwestern Catholics but also a few million Chinese, Indian, and Turkish 17-year-olds. The long-term trend is that admissions rates will continue to go down, the process will become less and less predictable, and the stress levels will rise even higher.
Concluding one of the most brutal admission seasons ever, college officials say they are accepting an unusually low percentage of applicants.Elite colleges including Brown University, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania say they have accepted a smaller percentage of applicants than ever before. Brown admitted only 13.8% of applicants, down from the 14.6% of applicants it accepted last year. That is a record-low rate, says Jim Miller, dean of admission. It saw a record 18,313 applications this year -- up more than 8% from last year.
...
The University of Pennsylvania admitted 17.7% of the record 20,479 applicants -- down from around 21% last year. A surge in applications -- coupled with an expected increase in the number of students who will enroll if admitted -- has meant a stingier year in admissions, says Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson. [continue reading]
Posted by adrianjo at 01:17 PM
April 02, 2006
Missing Cargo
Cargo, the magazine that has outfitted me for the last year, announced its closure recently. Here's the NYTimes's take:
THE lesson to be learned from the death of Cargo is not that guys don't like to shop, spend money or moisturize; or that Cargo was too gay or too straight; or that the cultural phenomenon of the metrosexual never really existed. The real culprit behind the decision last week to close Cargo, the men's shopping magazine, would have to be the stickers.Men don't like stickers. In each issue for two years Cargo included a page of peel-off tabs marked Buy or Save, so readers could neatly note their potential purchases while thumbing through features on cellphones, flat-screen televisions and dark-wash jeans.
Across the publishing landscape, as pundits search for a deep meaning behind the abrupt end of a magazine that was held up as symbolic of shifts in consumerism, sexual identity and the deterioration of journalism, maybe they need look no further than the stickers.
"I love shopping," said Bart Ianantuoni, a Manhattan personnel executive who gave up on Cargo after reading a few issues because he was offended by the presentation. "Stickers? They're treating men like teenage girls. I'm a guy. If I want something in a magazine and think I can't remember it, I'm going to tear the page out."
At last count Cargo had 373,727 subscribers, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which does not break down numbers on how many are metrosexuals.
It was refreshing to have a men's magazine that wasn't cut from the Playboy mold. Don't get me wrong; Hugh Hefner is a god. However, I don't want to read articles of any length, and I can find pictures of naked women anywhere without paying for it.
Read the whole thing from the NYT.
Posted by adrianjo at 10:55 PM