July 11, 2007

A tree grows in Brooklyn, and through my fire escape. Overnight!

Derrr. I accidentally deleted this post. It's back.

The heat has finally (sort of) broken. It just finished raining as hard as it could possibly rain. Good thing, too, because I want a pizza. (Explanation for those living outside of New York City: delivery people ride bicycles here.)

Here's a tip: don't sleep with a fan next to your head or else you'll catch cold, as I did. Not all is miserable, though. I've got So You Think You Can Dance and Deerhunter at Bowery to look forward to tonight.

UPDATE: Now it's Thursday. The choreography on SYTYCD is starting to bore me and the dancers are impressing me less & less each week, although guest judge, choreographer Adam Shankman injected some needed good-natured honesty and legitimate critical reaction that not even Fame-ous Debbie Allen (last week's guest judge) could muster. And have Lacey and Kameron already gotten into a lovers' spat? Because girl was being a total bitch to her partner and it's only week four. Also, it's sort of unfair that we have to walk the same earth as Cat Deeley. I don't know how much, if any, of her charm is manufactured but she could probably sell someone the Brooklyn Bridge if she wanted to.

Permalink | Comments (4)

July 09, 2007

You Scream I Scream, at Allen & Rivington, LES. Thanks, Ice Cream Man!

Has no one besides me noticed the giant naval ship docked outside my apartment? (Actually, down the street at the end of Atlantic Avenue)? Saturday morning, when I was out taking photos of it and the Brooklyn beach and floating pool on what turned out to be an accidentally exposed and therefore ruined roll of film, I saw a number of sailors walking around, mostly in civilian clothes, but a few in unrecognizable sailor's uniforms. I spied "H.M.S" on the band on their caps. Aha! The Royal Navy is in town! Ever since, there've been nothing but British sailors all over the neighborhood, and as far into Brooklyn as Great Lakes in Park Slope, mostly looking very bored, possibly because we only show baseball on our bar televisions here.

My neighborhood yoga studio closed. This is annoying on several fronts, not the least of which is that I do not go out of my way for yoga. Don't get me wrong--I like yoga. But not enough to travel beyond walking distance and back again for some crowded studio in the city. My neighborhood place was great--it always smelled nice, I gained some acquaintances among the regulars, and I could try out a variety of times and teachers until I found the right fit. That's the key, really, finding the right teacher. I'm picky, and I don't want someone who is new agey, or someone without a solid study of anatomy. I found that teacher, someone who articulates corrections in the most meaningful (not to mention humorous) way. Now I'm not sure where to find him and I don't have his last name; worse, his first name is, simply, John.

There's a video installation happening up at Lincoln Center: giant projections of a variety of dancers (including ballerina Wendy Whelan, Cunningham dancer Holley Farmer, DC-based choreographer and dancer Nejla Yatkin, and my personal favorite William Forsythe) shot at 1000 fps and shown in exhaustingly slow detail to reveal the imperceptible impulses underlying movement sequences, even in something as small as a gesture. View a clip here. Imagine seeing yourself five stories tall and moving in slo-mo. I fear it would be a hypnotic, Homer Simpson-style jiggling (see episode "The Springfield Files", with appearances by Agents Mulder and Scully.)

Finally, if I can get a little meta for a second, I sometimes make little notes to myself about tidbits worth mentioning on the blog. (This may surprise you, given how little I post these days.) These notes, be they on post-its or in a saved draft entry, help me keep my inevitably omnibus thoughts in order. In addition, it is often true that I have my best thoughts just before falling asleep. I've discovered solutions to math problems, programmed in SAS, and solved for world peace. (That last part is not actually true.) The problem is that when I combine a flitting, unsubstantial thought with a post-it scribble, I come up with what I found this morning: "MJ Grammies [sic]." I know what this means. It translates to, "Locate the YouTube clip of Michael Jackson from the year Thriller won every possible award including, I'm certain, Best Gospel album and Best Classical Recording". Brooke Shields was his date. I was 12 at the time and I, like every other 12 year old girl and every man, woman, and child from eight to eighty, absolutely died watching the Grammys. It was so exciting! The problem is I cannot for the life of me remember why I thought of this in the first place, and why I thought it necessary in order to contextualize another piece of this blog post. Nothing's making sense right now. I did, however, find that clip. Listen to all those girls shrieking! I assure you I was doing the same in my living room that night in 1984. But jeez, watching this clip now, it is absolutely clear that he was a strange guy even then.

UPDATE: I remembered! Get ready for a letdown. I have recently become wildly into Arvo Pärt's choral music, if by "wildly into" you mean "inclined to listen to while reading before bed". (It's too quiet to listen to on my iPod on the subway, even with decent headphones.) It is very sober, very sacred (! I'm an atheist), and very brilliant. I first got hooked on his choral work at a screening of the experimental film Passio, which featured live choral accompaniment at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. I downloaded a recording of Da Pacem by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, after hearing it on WNYC's Evening Music program. This recording won a Grammy last year. And my point in all of this is that I have not watched a Grammys broadcast since....1984 when Michael Jackson won all those awards for Thriller. I can sleep now.

UPDATE #2: No, I cannot sleep. It is beyond hot. I have moved living room furniture so that I may live my life 3 feet from the window unit that threatens to crap out along with all the power any second now. I have put my bed sheets into grocery bags and placed them in my (notoriously empty) fridge until I'm ready to go to sleep. Maybe I can just sleep on the chair in front of the AC unit.

Permalink | Comments (0)

July 05, 2007

Nathan's Famous, Coney Island. (Digital)

I did not go to the hotdog-eating contest. For one thing, I had other plans. For another, far more important thing, I cannot be anywhere near where public (or private) vomiting may occur.

Besides, I just wanted to put up a new post. I've got a backlog of photos, many of which haven't made it to my far more regularly updated site at Flickr, and I recently made not one but two trips to photographic retail establishments for more film and developer than I can imagine using up. (I usually find myself at Adorama but I was near enough to B&H; the other day that I stopped in there for some medium format film. That place is a trip. For as daunting & chaotic as that place seems, they're very helpful and I was in & out pretty quickly, despite walking in and immediately feeling paralyzed. So much signage! Where to go??) And then Ezra had to demonstrate the wonders of color slide film (Fuji Provia...and you haven't even seen the half of it over on his Flickr site). That'll have to wait until later.

Anyway, to wrap up, here's another photo. Wonder Wheel! (Film)

Permalink | Comments (0)

June 26, 2007

Van Dyke Street--Red Hook, Brooklyn. Experimentation with the wrong lens.

Smoking, trans fat, now traffic, photography, and noise. The sterilization of New York City continues on.

(Related to the noise bit: Mr. Softee's theme. Because you know you want that song blaring inside your brain the rest of the day. And related to that: the results of the Mr. Softee theme song project--see "Hear the Songs" section.)

In neighborhood news, I've been hearing rumors of Trader Joes coming to within walking distance of my apartment, and it's looking like it's going to happen, and closer to me than previously thought. Perhaps this will cut down on my constant going out/take-out consumption by one whole day per week! Also nearby: Floating pool!

Permalink | Comments (6)

June 11, 2007

Everything ages. Amoeba music store in Berkeley.

As a kid my dad watched Watch Mr. Wizard and I loved, loved, loved Mr. Wizard's World on Nickelodeon. I think I saw every episode. I loved how he let kids be actively involved and explain what they think will happen with each experiment. Don Herbert, may you rest in peace and know that you were adored. You helped pry open my inquisitive, analytical mind and your program will always be one of my all-time favorites. Supermarket Science!

The man I recently called a fuddy duddy has been eulogizing the careers of four reknowned ballerinas who are ending their careers right about now. (Dancers I can remember admiring when I was young have had astonishingly long careers, but their retirement signals the end of a generation in some sense and a reminder that I am getting old.) Thanks to You Tube, we get to see the Royal Ballet's Darcey Bussell just as she finishes her final peformance moments before the curtain peels back. (Check this clip of her in the Agon pas de deux. Those legs! That womanly charm!) Then there's Patricia Barker, who danced for the last time with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The Seattle Times has a lovely photo essay of Barker. Here in New York, there's Kyra Nichols of City Ballet--ancient by ballet standards at nearly 50 years old; I'm not sure how she's still dancing--and Alessandra Ferri of Ballet Theatre, who I will be seeing in Manon this week. I have a story about Ferri: shortly after I moved to New York I went up to Steps to take a dance class in one of its many studios at 74th & Broadway. Steps is known for its high calibre of ballet classes, where many professionals go for morning class. It was there that I saw her taking class, marking through some of the movement, conscious of the mirror and her placement even after all these years of dancing, her small body built for efficiency and precision. I was completely mesmerized. She, by the way, is all over YouTube.

(But YouTube (and live-bloggers), you've failed me because I cannot find Frank Langella's acceptance speech for his well-deserved win of the Tony Award for Best Male Performance in a Play, which was the very definition of class. )

Finally, I watched (most of) The Sopranos when I wasn't watching the Tony Awards (I could take or leave the musicals portion of the show, which my mother probably considers blaspheme.) The ending: for the first time in the history of the series, I felt what it must be like to live inside Tony's anxious head. Well done, Mr. Chase.

Permalink | Comments (8)

June 09, 2007

Lion and asp (out of alignment), New York Telephone Co. Building.

It must be PMS season at Listen Missy headquarters, because I've noticed myself being a little aggressive in meetings, I want more than anything to be able to beat the butts of the asshole squirrels that have been digging in my flower boxes, and I've been quietly mocking my downstairs neighbors who, coming on the heels of their nuptials last year at which point they obtained a monster-sized television + booming sound system for video games and Jerry Bruckheimer movies, have just obtained a second, monster-sized flat panel television (the box was blocking the stairwell the other day). While our apartments are spacious by NYC standards, it is still true that the bedroom is mere feet from the living room and, really, how much tv do you people need? You live in New York City. It's nice outside.

Speaking of being outside, in addition to the Atlantic Avenue Art Walk happening this weekend (mentioned in the post below), the Red Hook/Carroll Gardens Open Studio Tour is happening as well. [Link to PDF map.] While you're out, pay a visit to the Red Hook ballfield food vendors.

Permalink | Comments (0)

June 04, 2007

Cups, St. Francis Fountain & Candy in The Mission

I'm dreaming of Richard Serra. Not since The Gates has anything orange and wavy so captivated the city. Only, this is in my opinion more inspired. Yet just as accessible! (If by 'accessible' you mean $20. Except for Fridays after 4.) Not just feats of engineering, Serra's immense and seductively curved pieces made me conscious of my body, my weight, and my breath. It's truly engaging work.

Enlivened by the minimalism, I bought Carolyn Brown's tome, Chance and Circumstance: 20 Years with Cage and Cunningham, reputedly full of well-written insight and anecdotes on the avant garde movement and the important collaboration between John Cage and Merce Cunningham along with other artists such as Robert Rauschenberg.

Except that I also bought another door-stopper book of interest, 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, which I read about in The Economist and which is described to be the authoritative account not just of the Six-Day War, but of the dynamics both leading up to it and since. I'm not sure if I'm quite in the mood for something so serious: I just finished The Road (good news: that Oprah sticker peels right off!), which I flew through in five nights of my 15 minutes of pre-bedtime reading. I didn't sleep right during those five nights and I also couldn't help but think of the movie Testament, another member of the "the world has just been destroyed and so we're all as good as dead and how do we wrap our heads around this and find the motivation just to get through our days" genre.

Light-hearted: Did you see Knocked Up this weekend? I did, and I was less enthusiastic than I had worked myself up to be. Aside from Katherine Heigl lacking the chops to create a likeable, memorable character like Catherine Keener did in the far-funnier 40 Year Old Virgin, I was put off by the overall personality-less, shrewiness of the female leads. Still, funny and worth the price of admission, but in my mind a disappointment.

Finally, I've got plans to redesign this page. The plans are thus: Develop a new graphic, the rest will follow (including a fix to the RSS feed - where are the photos?). At least I've made it this far! I've got all summer to find my inspiration. (The weather, by the way, is alternately my muse and my bête noire.)

UPDATE: The Atlantic Avenue Art Walk is this weekend. I'll be out walking.

Permalink | Comments (8)

May 20, 2007

Brooklyn Bridge on a windy day.

Alastair Macaulay, who last year was named chief dance critic for the New York Times and whose writing I've generally enjoyed up until now, has officially revealed himself to be a fuddy duddy. I saw the Doug Varone piece at BAM on Friday and I'm scratching my head to figure out what piece Macaulay thinks he saw, what sort of ballet-colored lenses he was looking through, and why he felt it necessary to essentially insult the dancers. (Just who, pray tell, was "out of shape"?)

What I like about Varone's dances and dancers, aside from the range of age and body-type, is that they are all well-trained and athletic, but technique is not showcased by the choreography in any deliberate or offhand way. I'm so sick of watching technique for technique's sake with little infusion of any personality. (I'm thinking of Stephen Petronio and Karol Armitage specifically, two recent examples of tedium in my mind. Please, no more overuse of variations on the penché masquerading as "edgy".)

I haven't determined if Varone was being deliberately abstruse so as not to convey a tidy thesis, or if the work is merely ill-conceived or under-realized (this is a re-working of an already workshopped piece). In any case, I could never think of the piece as tedious, as Macaulay asserts. "But what does the piece mean?" aside--truthfully, I'm not exactly sure, except for indications of discovering the means for communication--it is a multi-media wonder, juxtaposing film, a constantly moving set, singing dancers, actors, and a really fantastic live score by Shudder to Think's Nathan Larson (who has composed for films such as High Art, First Love, Last Rites, Boys Don't Cry, Lilja 4-Ever, and Todd Solondz's films.)

Video clip of Doug Varone's Dense Terrain.

Related: "Funny, You Don't Look Dancerish".

Permalink | Comments (1)

May 16, 2007

Ladder to heaven. My roof, Brooklyn

I've started shooting and processing film. Awwww yeeeahhh. More here.

Permalink | Comments (0)

May 12, 2007

Hammock, Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn

It's been an exciting week. First, an Instalanche has lit a fire under my bottom to keep on with regular posting.

In case you missed the Brooklyn Blogfest on Thursday, the local NBC channel covered it, as did the New York Times. Funny, because the topic of the evening was largely a critique of traditional media. Many thanks and gushing admiration to Louise for making this event happen. And thanks to Eleanor for keeping me hip to the happening (along with her unexpected shout-out to this site during her Blogfest presentation). UPDATE: Eleanor's interview with me is now up on her site. Many thanks to her; it's a rare experience to get to read about yourself through someone else's perspective.

Meanwhile, amid the recent gust of cultural goings-on in the Listen Missy world, I saw the play Frost/Nixon on Wednesday. It's a solid work, executed at a clip for nearly 2 intermission-less hours, but I recognize what it is about writer Peter Morgan that kind of bugs me. He writes a historical fiction that is compelling enough to make us feel sympathetic toward the increasingly irrelevant (Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen) and the dishonorable (Richard Nixon, here). But I think that's just it: he practically begs for that sympathy, because otherwise the whole effort would fail. Fortunately, he is backed by nuanced or powerhouse acting. And don't get me wrong: I don't dislike his work; in fact, it's an unusual perspective on pieces of history that many of us have already lived through, rather than a rash editorialization or distortion of facts (although I seriously doubt that Prince Philip is the boob he was portrayed to be). In any event, while I believe Liev is this year's gimme for the Best Actor Tony Award, Liev thinks it's Frank Langella.

Also this week I had an ant infestation to deal with. But! I have swiftly conquered it and I want to share with you how I did it. Thursday morning I spotted one ant in the shower and brushed another one from my sleeve when I got to work. I 'm told these were among the location scouts, the reconnaissance team who report back to headquarters with the go-ahead to invade. And so they did; when I got home they were everywhere and yet part of a highly-organized formation from the cable cable entry point over to the kitchen. I was due back out the door so I prayed the internet would save me in a pinch. And it did: Baby Powder. Thanks to an on-hand supply of Gold Bond, I sprinkled around their path and the entry point. Within 24 hours, most all had disappeared, apparently having lost their way. I vacuumed and followed up with well-placed ant spray; 48 hours after their first appearance, they are totally gone, save for one or two stragglers here or there. This method probably won't work for you if you've got critters you actually want around and who might be prone to licking the floor.

Finally, this week I've moved backwards in the progression of photography technology and made my first attempt at shooting film and developing it myself. I put only one photo on Flickr because I was more interested in getting a roll out rather than carefully shooting pictures. There are some issues I don't yet know how to fix, but I'm very happy so far.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Will, who has been guest blogging at The Economist. And you probably already knew about Matthew Yglesias' move to The Atlantic Online.

Permalink | Comments (0)