As New York's uniqueness evaporates, ask an expert about what still makes the city extraordinary. [CR]
Enjoy a new Walker in the City: "Yeah, he’s lookin’ at ME! This whole train fulla sex perverts and homosexuals and he’s gonna look at ME? Yeah, he’s the one. Are you a sex pervert, sir?" [WIC]
Will the Empire Diner be the city's next exported diner? [Eater]
Has a tombstone been uncovered in Washington Square? [WSP]
Sometimes it's fun to play "count the cell phones" coming out of a movie at Union Square. Bonus: As the credits roll, how many seconds before every iPhone in the joint springs to life?
Visit the "Far East Williamsburg" industrial zone. [FNY]
Union and Confederate soldiers invade Tompkins Square. [EVG]
Halloween shenanigans in TSP. [NMNL]
StuyTowners react to last week's verdict. [NYT]
I don't understand the instant activation of these pocket communication devices right after a film, either.
ReplyDeleteIn a recent interview Terry Gilliam spoke about digital communities.
"Now, my problem is – with telephones and these things, and everybody talking about communication – I want to improve people’s ability to be alone and not communicate. If you’re alone, you actually start finding out who you are. Give up your mobile phones, your twittering things, everything, and stop being a part of a community. Start being alone!
We need to be alone; that’s what I’ve been talking about recently. Because I think everybody’s getting too involved in a too large a network. Which is very nice, it’s great! But what is really interesting is to go and be on your own for a long time and discover who you are. You’re not just a part of a community."
love the Gilliam quote, thanks for that. of course, it seems fewer and fewer people in our society can tolerate being alone with themselves.
ReplyDeleteGilliam is spot-on, and I've been saying this myself recently. I simply don't understand the need to be constantly available and connected to something, or rather someone else.
ReplyDeleteI too have played count the devices, but I stopped because it made me feel perilously close to existing in some sort of cheap, sci-fi film.
Here we are in Autumn; the most beautiful time of year in NYC I think. Take a walk through Central Park unplugged and disconnected and be with yourself folks!
Rx: I wouldn't mind reading the rest of the interview. Where was/is it?
ReplyDeleteI can understand why people want to know if they got nay calls after a movie. I turn my, 4 year old verizen phone only, thingy on after the movie. I just hate it when they use the phones during the movie, silent, but the glow of the light is distracting.
I was in the Film Forum recently. Then have a before the movie film that tells people to turn them off all together with a little animation of all the glowing screens.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBrain cancer will clear out the herd (the heard?).
ReplyDeleteThe link to the Gilliam interview
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sensesofcinema.com/youve-got-to-work-at-maintaining-your-version-of-the-world-so-start-being-alone-an-interview-with-terry-gilliam/