Culture For The Non-Cultured

Dear Friday,

I have flirted with you all week & now you are almost here. I wish your commute was shorter.

Love, Sheryl

I finally saw the movie version of Defiance yesterday. The story touched me profoundly: Polish Jewish people who hid from the Nazis by living in the forest, led primarily by the three Bielski brothers. The community mainly was just that — a community — with shelter and organized division of labor and, eventually, nurseries and schools. The survivors numbered 1,200 by war’s end, and their descendants are now about 10 times that many.

(All those people who may never have walked the Earth if the community leaders had not existed boggles the mind).

After the war, 2 of the brothers who started the community immigrated to New York City, where they started a trucking business.

The movie was OK, but, like most movies, had one-dimensional characters and oversimplification of plot. Serves to get the world out, though, since the Bielskis never once asked for recognition.

I must read the book, though — I’ve heard it’s quite good.

Ad in front of Brooklyn wine tour read …

“Obama drinks wine. Don’t you think you should too?”

Wish I had had a camera

I STILL can’t believe that the New York Times published a story that certain subway screeching sounds like West Side Story’s “Somewhere.” I told multiple people I heard this in the past couple of years, and multiple people thought I was INSANE.

Totally awesome.

(FYI: West Side Story is now on Broadway.)

Lots of cool things in this article about Norman Rockwell, Stockbridge, Mass., and the Norman Rockwell Museum.

– The Museum is going to create the Rockwell Center, which will “transform the museum into a nexus for the study of American illustration art, a woefully neglected field.”

– In his final years, Rockwell used the people of Stockbridge as models for his paintings: Yep, the sometimes simple and syrupy-sweet but ultimately heartening paintings were based on real people

– Rockwell has inspired town reunions: People get together every December to re-create Rockwell’s 1967 painting “Main Street.” And last month many of Rockwell’s former models attended the opening of “The Stockbridge Models Project,” a show organized by the museum in Stockbridge’s new Town Hall, once the high school, where Rockwell sometimes recruited them.

“What we hadn’t counted on was how it was going to turn into a high school reunion,” Ms. Moffatt, the director of the museum said. “It not only triggered the Rockwell memory but also that sense of place and community.”

And, if Rockwell was like his paintings, I think he would’ve been quite happy with that legacy.

Main Street

Alright, it’s October, and time for a 3/4 Year Resolution:

I will now try to drink good, clean New York City tap water rather than convenient, but Earth-destroying and money-devouring bottled water.

Why? Because bottled water companies use more than 47 billion fossil fuels annually to deliver their product. And according to Jane Houlihan, an environmental engineer who co-authored a recent study on bottled water, “in some cases, it appears bottled water is no less polluted than tap water and, at 1,900 times the cost, consumers should expect better.”

And to get better water, perhaps we New Yorkers should look no farther than our faucets! In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said New York City has some of the finest drinking water not just in the United States but anywhere in the world.

So, I’m gonna try passing on the dirty water in the polluting plastic. Instead, I’ll get fresh, clean, life-affirming agua pumped from upstate New York to my kitchen sink.

(Info direct from Metropolitan Blogs. There’s also an excellent article in Fast Company about bottled water.)

A few weekends ago, I went to see Rent on a movie screen. The final performance of the Broadway show had been taped, and they were showing it to enthusiastic movie goers.

Well … I could not help but notice the ages of the actors did not match up. There were a few too many crows’ feet by that woman’s eyes for me to imagine her going out with that baby-faced guy.

And I brought this up to my fellow movie-goers who pointed out that this movie was taped before a Broadway audience whose distance from the stage allowed them to suspend disbelief in a way that high definition simply did not.

Which proves that some illusions are best left intact …

Dear Tourists,

God bless you.

Tourists, even in a good economy, you are vital. In an economy such as this, you may just be the arms that pull New York out of financial hell.

Please, treat yourself and a busload of your best buddies to Four Seasons. Pay full price for Broadway shows. Buy a Coach bag or ten (on 5th Avenue, not the Chinatown variety).

We New Yorkers are thankful. So, ask your directions. Give us natives your cameras and we will capture your memories so you can visually spread the word about our fair city. Walk as S-L-OW-L-Y as you please.
***
(When you New Yorkers get all impatient with the slow walkers, just remember: tourists cannot SPEND if they speedwalk with their head down!)

is by Dentyne Gum.

You’ll see these ads in subways now that you know about ‘em. Fabulous: very positive, catchy, they totally pop out at you and make you feel warm ‘n fuzzy all over.

The ads make me want to chew Dentyne Gum, so that when I meet people in person, I’m sure I have great breath.

And the theme of the campaign is one that is close to my heart: as Organizer of Culture for the Non-Cultured Meetup, I use the computer to help people interact with each other and take advantage of the off-line, real-life activities New York City has to offer.

I salute Dentyne!

I was in the pizza store just now, indulging my weakness for grease and cheese and late-night eating when Michael Jackson came on the radio.

‘Twas the Michael Jackson of the later years — Remember the Time, Heal the World.  It was not his greatest material, but it was still delightful to listen to.   I could not help but think about the enormous talent that man/woman/child possesses.  

Yes, he sticks his 10-month old over a balcony.  Yes, he probably committed scandalous acts against innocent children whose parents essentially sold them to a 40-year old man who happened to like sleepovers.

But, holy surgical weirdness, Batman, that guy can sing!