Saturday, December 30, 2006
From 4 to 300 Million
Friday, December 29, 2006
America by the Numbers: Religion
Today: religion. Over three-quarters of all Americans are either Roman Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, or Mainline Protestant. Below - where each group lives.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Where We All Live
Click to see the map larger.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Santacon - Bringing Santas Together Since 1996
"I met you at the bar when we lost our respective santas. We watched the bad strippers; you commented on the downside of drinking white russians. You took off with your friend who'd lost her purse. I wish I'd asked you for your number; I'd love to hang out again." santacon at splash - m4w - 35
"I was so drunk and I never bothered to remember your name. Sorry, I'm a prick. I was the guy in the santa outfit." m4w - 26
And from the SF site: "I still have my Santa suit from last weekend's Santacon. Wondering if there's a little girl out there who wants to "persuade" Santa that she deserves everything on her Christmas list. Have you been naughty or nice?" Santa's horny - m4w - 29 (SOMA / south beach)
Monday, December 18, 2006
Santacon; Or, How I Learned to Stop Kvetching and Love Christmas
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Cool Shit This Weekend
Santacon
You must dress like Santa, you should ho-ho-ho like Santa, you ought to give out gifts like Santa, and (of course) ya gotta drink like Santa. Get creative: be a Secret Santa, a Santasaurus, Candy-cane, a Reindeer, a Chanukah Chicken, a goddamn latke. Just don't wear your fucking jeans.
It's a long day, so be prepared. Bring a Metrocard. Stay with the group. Try not to drunkenly wander off, though. How hard is it to lose 500 Santas? Pay your own damn bar tab.
Check website for meet-up location in Manhattan, 10:10am Saturday
Wooster Collective at 11 Spring
It's time to say farewell to 11 Spring Street, which has been a gathering point for graffiti by New York, national and international graffiti artists over the past twenty years. Now, 11 Spring has been sold and will be turned into condos. The new buyers are cognizant of the important part this building has played in New York graffiti life, and want to honor it through a final hurrah.
Over the past two months, graffiti artists have covered the entire inside of the building, five stories in all, with their work. The building will be open to the public Friday through Sunday, 11 to 5. Monday morning, they'll start sealing the art up behind drywall as they transform the building into condos: a full-building time capsule.
Artists include Shepard Fairey, WK, Jace, Swoon, David Ellis, FAILE, Cycle, Lady Pink, London Police, Prune, JR, Speto, D*Face, JMR, Blek Le Rat, John Fekner, Bo and Microbo, Above, BAST, Momo, Howard Goldkrand, Borf, Gaetane Michaux, Skewville, Michael DeFeo, Will Barras, Kelly Burns, Abe Lincoln, Jr, Thubdercut, Judith Supine, Rekal, Maya Hayuk, Anthony Lister, Stikman, You Are Beautiful, Gore-B, Elboe-Toe, MCA, Jasmine Zimmerman, Plasma Slugs, Diego, RIPO, The Graffiti Research Lab, Txtual Healing, Mark Jenkins, Dan Witz, Iminendisaster, Rene Gagnon, and others.
11 Spring, 11am-5pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Erotic Arts Show at Williamsburg White Room
Open bar from 7- 8 pm, with complimentary snacks to enjoy while you view the many beautiful, affordable works for sale ( last minute present idea anyone??). DJ Fatsakz will be spinning funk, soul, and R-N-B from 7 – 10 pm, and then they’ll have several musical performances including a Janis Joplin cover set, some load raucous rock-n-roll from local NY band Wrong, and DJ Lucas spinning a variety of hits to take us into the late night.
208 S. 3rd St, Williamsburg, Saturday 7 pm to late
Billionaires for Bush present The Billionaire Follies in Dick Cheney's Holiday Spectacular
It's Christmas Eve. A beleaguered last-minute shopper is desperate to find the hottest toy of the season at All-Mart when a holiday shopping brawl knocks her unconscious and catapults her into Dick Cheney's Holiday Spectacular 2006. It a macabre, hilarious world of bling, billionaires, and season's greed-ings featuring all of Dick's favorite carols. Highlights include: We Three Kings of Petroleum Are, Toys for the World (Are Made by Kids), and The Halliburton Chorus. This twisted holiday revue also features the 24-Carat Rockettes, a special girls night with Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney, and a reenactment of Dick's favorite film, It's a Wonderful Presidency.
Ace of Clubs, 9 Great Jones, 8pm Sunday; $15
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
RIP 11 Spring
Over the past two months, graffiti artists have covered the entire inside of the building, five stories in all, with their work. The building will be open to the public Friday through Sunday, 11 to 5. Monday morning, they'll start sealing the art up behind drywall as they transform the building into condos: a full-building time capsule.
Full story [NY Times]
Most Americans Think They're Not As Racist As Others Are: Social Psychologists Explain
A new CNN poll found that most Americans think that racism is still a problem, but that other people are racist, not them.
Social psychology may provide an explanation. There's a body of research that explores why people tend to hold overly optimistic views about themselves. Among other things, people tend to selectively recall their past behavior, remembering the good and forgetting the bad; and they evaluate themselves in an overly positive manner - the "above-average effect."
In one fascinating article, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own. Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments, Justin Kruger and David Dunning tried to figure out how this could be. In four tests, they evaluated participants' humor, logical reasoning, and grammar, and also asked participants for a self-evaluation in these areas. They found that those who got the lowest scores in the objective evaluations scored among the highest in the self-evaluation.
Kruger and Dunning concluded that those with limited knowledge ("unconscious incompetents," in management-speak) not only don't know, they don't know that they don't know. David Rakoff of the NY Times cautions us not to intepret this to mean simply that "it's the idiots who are always most certain they're right." Rather, he suggests, "what's most telling is the very ease with which the study lends itself to carping zingers about everyone else's stupidity. It speaks directly to our anxious desire to distance ourselves, as loudly as possible, from incompetent people -- as if incompetence were subject to that same you-are-or-you-aren't dichotomy as pregnancy."
But, he concludes "of course, you can be a little bit incompetent. All of us are." Just like we're all a little bit racist. We just don't want to admit it.
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Nietzsche Family Circus
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
How to Be a New Yorker: 1964 Edition
File under: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I found How to Be a New Yorker at the Strand. This book by Joan & Leslie Rich is from 1964, but a lot of the markers of New York City life appear to be immutable. Among them: don't bother moving for the door until the subway stops; jay-walk; grunt when you're buying things.
An modern list of how to be a New Yorker, from an Australian expat:
Dress in black, despise most men (if you're female), cancel lunches, have a therapist and if you are single, have a listing on one of the many personals columns. As far as the lingo's concerned, you can get by even with an accent, if you sprinkle your conversation with a few "Puhleeze"s and "Fuhgedaboudit"s. If you want to be a really polished New Yorker, you could add in the dog or cat and make sure you have a socially cool New York type job - Wall street, freelancing something or other in the arts or acting.The same. But different.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Classic Restaurant Rivalries (or: Food Feuds)
Manganaro's Hero Boy versus Manganaro's Food & Restaurant
Lombardi’s vs. Totonno’s vs. John’s vs. Patsy’s vs. Grimaldi’s
Magnolia versus Buttercup et cetera.
Pat Olivieri, who opened Pat's King of Steaks as a hot dog stand near South Philadelphia's Italian Market back in 1930, claims to have invented the Philly Cheesesteak. Geno's opened in 1967, and they've stared each other down across a barren patch of South Philly pavement like Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa ever since. Geno's owner Joe Vento claims that they made the cheesesteak what it is today by being the first to add cheese, although they concede that Pat's is responsible for the later introduction of Cheese Whiz (thus adding the phrase 'whiz wit' to American English). And, of course, they hate each other. Vento explains that the reason people eat at Pat's is that "you can acquire a taste for bad food."
Manganaro's Food & Restaurant, 488 Ninth Ave., between 37th and 38th Sts; 212-563-5331
Lombardi’s, 32 Spring Street, New York; 212 941-7994
John’s Pizzeria, 278 Bleecker Street, New York; 212 243-1680
Totonno’s Pizzeria Napolitano, 1524 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn; 718 372-8606
Grimaldi's, 19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn, 718 858-4300
Magnolia Bakery, 401 Bleecker St. @ 11th St.; 212 462-2572
Buttercup Bake Shop, 973 2nd Ave between 51st & 52nd St; 212 350-4144
Pat's King of Steaks, 1237 E Passyunk Ave, Philadelphia; 215 468-1546
Geno's Steaks, 1219 S 9th St, Philadelphia, 215 389-0659
Got a rivalry to suggest? Write me.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Racial Dividing Lines in Brooklyn
Flatbush Ave cleaves black and white Brooklyn, with much of the area to the northeast of Flatbush more than 50% or 75% black, and much of the area to the southwest of Flatbush more than 50% or 75% white. Areas of downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Gowanus are "diverse," meaning neither blacks nor whites make up more than 50% of the population.
I would love to see data comparing changes in neighborhood racial demographics to changes in what neighborhood an area is called. The area considered Park Slope several years ago pushed below 5th Avenue, and is now creeping below 4th Avenue, if not further. The map shows that this corresponds to a diverse area that is becoming more white. Similarly, will the dividing line between Crown Heights and Prospect Heights continue to move west, paralleling the movement by whites into a neighborhood that had been almost exclusively black?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Maps of Imaginary Worlds: My Father's Dragon
My Father's Dragon was written in 1944 by Ruth Stiles Gannett and illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett. Fifty years later, the story was made into an anime movie in Japan.
The book is about the main character, Elmer Elevator, running away to Wild Island to rescue a baby dragon. Here's the map of his world.