30 years ago New York City was a dangerous place. Especially Bushwick in Brooklyn, my neighborhood today, was one of the most poor and devastated places you could imagine. You can still see that in missing buildings, which were often burned down by their owners because they just wouldn’t sell.
Anyway, I just read a blog post on woot.com that has occasional reviews of funny used books. This one is called “Street Smart” and was written by Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa and their lawyer Murray Schwartz.
In his blog entry Jason Toon highlights the funniest and most paranoid moments of the book (including Guardian Angels fashion) and wouldn’t miss the chance to spice them up with a handful of hilarious comments. My favorite excerpt from the book is probably this one:
I feel like waking up from a bad dream only to realize the dream is reality. It’s true, I will not be the Democratic Nominee for the Presidential Election 2008. There, I said it. All those scavengers in the media would love to have that quote. There is more meat sticking to it than there’s pork in Washington. And here I am, telling you, but not telling them.
You know, I always said to Bill “We can not and will not be defeated!” For christsakes, he got into the White House, and he knows probably half as much about health care, trade negotiations and the Iraq War as I do. Who could – no, better – who dared to stop me? I had the pundits, I had the funding, I had the media. I was a historical inevitability. [Read more]
Ever since the HBO series Sex and the City ended four years ago, its fans have been waiting for the announced movie. Now, it has finally arrived. Finally? Something has gotten lost on the way. [Read more]
If you’re free on Friday night and you are in Berlin, head down to the Skizum Studios, for the free screening of the Vietnam documentary “Sir! No Sir!” The movie tells the – relatively unknown – story of the underground GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War.
Film club b-ware! are again organizing their “Awarded Summer” (Ausgezeichneter Sommer) in Berlin, which means independent movies screened at amazing outdoor locations Bar25 and Badeschiff (at Badeschiff you can even enjoy the movie from the pool!).
See the trailer here and learn more about the movie and the screening at Bar25 after the jump.
Today I went to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in the Javits Center in New York. I expected an insight in latest developments in design but in the end it was (not surprisingly) just a furniture fair. Anyway, I saw a few interesting things. If you want to go and see for yourself, tomorrow the fair will be open for the public.
In the late Palezoic and Mesozoic times, a supercontinent is said to have existed, which was comprised of all the continental crust of the earth. It’s name is a composition of the Greek words for all and earth – Pangea.
Pangea Day – tomorrow – is a joined effort to turn this supercontinent into reality again. It will bring together an audience of 500 million or more people in a worldwide filmfest, which you can follow in thousands of venues around the globe, or simply on your PC screen. The festival features two dozen outstanding short films, the crème de la crème of more than 2,500 entries worldwide.
Just when you thought the Dems were beginning to move in circles, looking to something as colorful as gas taxes to spike the “Donkey Punch,” Obama supporters turn the knobs and change the beat.
Following Will.I.Am’s wildly popular “Yes We Can,” featuring soul saint John Legend, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the angelic Scarlett Johansson (just to name a few), TI$A (from the superior, but much overlooked, hip-hop/r’n'b producer/writer/super group Sa-Ra Creative Partners) drops another MTV/Hollywood gem to keep the election spectacle vibrant.
In the weeks since the outbreak of demonstrations in Tibet, much debate has evolved around the Olympic Games in China. Should there be a boycott? How can the athletes express their opinion? Now athletes have found a way to show their disapproval of China’s politics without violating the Olympic Charter.
Something about the current campaign is quite surprising for Germans, apart from the fact that millions are spend just to determine the final candidates. It’s the notion that many people and institutions of the public life explicitly take sides in this hard fought campaign. But isn’t that what we should expect from them? [Read more]