What’s the main thing you notice?
Directed by Alexandre Perrier. Produced by Kidam.
Tag Archives: New York
Film: The Beat of New York
A film by Thomas Noesner, Tim Hahne and Toussaint. Some professionals go to New York to film a car commercial and end up making something that’s actually worth watching while they’re on their own free time. Nice colors, movements and lots of sneaky cool people watching!
Why I Think the New York Mosque Near Ground Zero is Good
Today, I found out, purely by accident, that I am connected to the ‘ground zero’ mosque in an unexpected way. First of all, ‘ground zero mosque’ is a terrible name. The building is not on ground zero. It’s a couple of blocks away. It’s simply a New York Islamic center. I lived in New York for many years and I know perfectly well that lower Manhattan is tiny. Everything is near ground zero! For weeks, I have been reading articles about the plans for converting a building in lower Manhattan into an Islamic center and the accompanying controversy, based in large part upon the notion that an Islamic center close to ground zero somehow insults the memories of the 9/11 victims. I have made my thoughts on the virulent anti-Muslim bigotry spreading across the United States and Europe very clear in an earlier post. This form of bigotry is going to be seen eventually as one of the great shames of the early 21st century.
During my web travels this morning, I came across a Salon article about how all the fear-mongering surrounding this Islamic center got started.
Here’s a quote from the article:
Dec. 8, 2009: The Times publishes a lengthy front-page look at the Cordoba project. “We want to push back against the extremists,” Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the lead organizer, is quoted as saying. Two Jewish leaders and two city officials, including the mayor’s office, say they support the idea, as does the mother of a man killed on 9/11. An FBI spokesman says the imam has worked with the bureau. Besides a few third-tier right-wing blogs, including Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs site, no one much notices the Times story.
Well, as chance would have it, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the older brother of my very best friend throughout my teenage years. I grew up in Washington, D.C. where Mr. Abdul Rauf’s father was the director of the Islamic Center. It is a beautiful mosque located on Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest D.C. I spent many of my days there in the seventies and early eighties because my friend’s family had their apartment inside the center. Those were days filled with the adventure of young minds trying to explore and figure out what they were going to do in life. I was – and still am – a non-religious liberal-minded fellow, more interested in riding bikes than attending services. My friend was the youngest of three brothers and he was very intelligent, rather sensitive, but always an irritatingly persistent arguer on almost any topic we could find. We’d argue on buses, in cars, walking through D.C., watching TV, going to movies, playing football – just about anywhere was a good spot for an argument. I spent many weekends there at the Islamic Center playing soccer with my friend and the young men who worked there. They tried to teach Backgammon to me down in the basement of the mosque where they smoked in secret because if Mr. Abdul Rauf found out about it they would have been in a little trouble with him. The father took his work seriously. But he was a gentle and kind man. He treated me like his son. I had many dinners at home with the family and Mr. Abdul Rauf never once tried to make me feel bad for not being a Muslim. He would answer my questions with simplicity and understanding. He would tell some little stories in order to illustrate a point. I was always told that he spent much of his time studying the Holy Qu’ran and writing books about it. I was amazed by his library of books. His office was a quiet place where books were piled and papers were spilled across his desk. I liked this man. He was reserved and slightly imposing, but profoundly kind and he took care of everyone I ever saw him come into contact with.
My friend’s father knew that his son and I had developed a keen interest in Super 8 film cameras. He invited us to come into the mosque for a wedding ceremony and he said we could film it. We were to be the chroniclers of a real Muslim wedding! We prepared for this over several weeks. My friend taught me the ways of showing respect in a mosque. He showed me the beauty inside a mosque. I felt comfortable there even though I didn’t have a religious bone in my body. Frankly, I felt more comfortable there than I’ve ever felt in a Catholic church. Much more relaxed. And the beauty is of a much less imposing and ostentatious nature. The beauty is subtle and serene. Like water.
So my best friend and I filmed his father performing an Islamic wedding. We felt very much in charge of what we were doing and we did the best job we knew how. I always felt proud that I had this connection to the mosque and its activities. There were plenty of other occasions the family invited me to. I even helped them prepare for some of the big feasts and celebrations. I’d haul dessert trays and pile foods onto tables out in the courtyard. I’d help clean the family apartment after some big gathering or dinner. Then my friend and I would sneak into all the leftovers when his parents were asleep. I believe that this was where I had my first taste of a magnificent dessert called baklava. It was a good time then and I had experiences that are very rare for an American boy who doesn’t worship a god.
Special Treat For The Anti-Defamation League: How to Build a Mosque
Since the Anti-Defamation League has just decided to support the mission of bigots opposed to the building an Islamic center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site in New York City, I thought I’d offer them a special presentation on the building of a mosque.
Another suggestion for all bigots like those who work at the Anti-Defamation League would be to schedule a field trip to a local mosque to see just how well-treated one is upon entering a mosque. If you have never been inside a mosque I would recommend going. What you imagine goes on inside a mosque is most certainly not what goes on inside a mosque. Give it a try sometime. Get to know the people inside the building and when you start to feel really bad about the way you have behaved, just chalk it up to your own uneducated imagination.
Here’s an article about the raging anti-Muslim attitudes spreading across the U.S. and Europe.
Anti-Defamation League Joins Anti-Mosque Bigots in Hatred
Anti-Defamation League - Fighting Anti-Semitism, Bigotry and Extremism - Yeah, unless you're a Muslim.
The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that ostensibly stands up for religious freedom and tolerance in the United States has shocked and disgusted many people, including me, by announcing their opposition to the construction of a mosque in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site.
In the vicinity! We’re not talking about on top of Ground Zero. We’re talking about nearby, somewhere in the general neighborhood in New York City.
The Anti-Defamation League appears, as a result of this bizarre proclamation, to be an organized group of bigots pretending to support tolerance.
Muslims have every right to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site. There’s nothing inappropriate or wrong about it. In fact, I think it shows a concerted effort to be a thriving part of the New York community. It’s healthy to build this mosque. It’s a better decision than building the ever-stalled ‘Freedom Tower’ which never gets an inch off the ground. Why not rename it ‘Freedom Hole.’ These people who have been protesting, including some of the relatives of 9/11 victims, are nothing more than the worst form of bigot. They couch their hatred in ‘protecting the emotional well-being of families and victims.’ By their logic we should cordon off every site of a plane crash and forbid construction by people who are of the same religious beliefs as the pilots. We should ascertain the religion of every person who commits a murder and prevent people of that religion from ever constructing churches near the murder sites. Insane. Hateful. Nonsense.
Muslims are not terrorists. Muslims are simply people who worship in a particular way. Associating Muslims with terrorism is bigotry by definition. I think someone should build a mosque on top of the Anti-Defamation League.
Here is what the Anti-Defamation League says:
Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.
So don’t build your mosque because it’ll make a bunch of backwoods idiot bigots feel bad. Wow! I’m just blown away. You know, I never give money to organized bigots. But I’ll certainly contribute to the mosque-building fund if there is one.
This insidious and creeping connection of Islam to terrorism is becoming very dangerous. It’s getting worse quickly. It’s spreading all over the U.S. and Europe. If the Anti-Defamation League feels that is can say something like this then we are in very bad shape indeed.
The Mona Lisa Curse: Do High Prices Ruin the Art World?
This is a 12-part film on YouTube called The Mona Lisa Curse by art critic Robert Hughes. The film is fascinating for its overview of the art scene in New York since the 1960s. Hughes, the art critic for Time Magazine, goes on an extended diatribe against the fast-paced and overpriced world of art collectors and auctions that he says have debased recent art. He hates Damien Hirst because, according to him, the work does not merit the inflated prices. He hates Andy Warhol and thinks he was stupid and stole ideas from Robert Rauschenberg. He thinks wealthy collectors have become simple investors without a thought in their heads about why the art is important.
But I think Mr. Hughes is a giant bore. He walks around with a comical scowl on his block-like face. He lumbers into a collector’s home to question him about why he would want to own 800 Andy Warhol pieces. The collector gives him decent and somewhat thoughtful answers that are soundly rejected by the ogre in the room because he thinks Warhol was ‘one of the stupidest people he ever met in his life.’ Why? ‘Because he had nothing to say.’
Nothing to say. First of all, if you are waiting for someone to say something, you are going to waste half of your life doing so. Warhol never said a damn thing that I can recall reading anywhere except that when asked why another artist was so good he said that it was because he made good lunches. But Mr. Hughes is looking for something else. Warhol had nothing to say. In fact, I met him at a bookstore in Manhattan once and he just said, ‘Hi.’ It fit the occasion quite nicely in fact. There’s your answer, Mr. Hughes. The quietest voice in the museum must be Andy Warhol’s.
But if Hughes insists on asking some uninspired collector about what made Warhol so good, he is only going to get an answer culled from some brochure. He needs a real answer. Here’s mine. Andy Warhol was great because he tried to destroy meaning.
Hughes’ most scathing remarks are saved for the wheeler dealer art auctioneers and representatives in New York. They run around selecting high-priced art for their clients and hold bidding wars at places like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. This pushes art prices up into the stratosphere, making every artist want to earn the big bucks.
So what? Who cares?
The money people are having much more fun than tiresome old Mr. Hughes. This guy should live under a bridge. Who cares if a painter does something that costs $400 one day and $40,000,000 the next? Where’s the problem? It’s fun to trade money for art. The more expensive it is the more well cared for it will be. If you don’t want to spend large sums on art you don’t have to. There are plenty of fine artists selling for a few hundred dollars.
I like Mr. Hughes’ film, but I don’t accept his views.
For instance, he despises this huge sculpture by Damien Hirst:
Why? It’s an astounding statue. Reminds me of ancient Egypt. Look at the feet. And those cut off fingers! Look at what that face is doing. It’s a face! I would jam this thing into my backyard if I could unseat it from its pedestal.
But watch the film all the way through. It’s very unusual and I have to love Mr. Hughes for making it and for being so willing to be so cranky. Cranks are always fun. I say stupid things just to make them mad.
Go here for part 2 and you’ll find the other 10 parts as well.
All the Paintings in the Museum of Modern Art
Someone at YouTube named Chrspck went into the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on April 10 and shot a photograph of every painting. Museums and galleries have no business forbidding photography as long as it doesn’t use a flash or get in the way of visitors. I love seeing all the paintings go by. It makes me want to go to the museum.
Scarlett Johansson Has Made a Magnificent Short Film: These Vagabond Shoes
I spend a lot of my very limited brain capacity wondering why Hollywood directors don’t run around with small cameras making their own little movies for YouTube. Scarlett Johansson has made an excellent short film called These Vagabond Shoes which puts on display her obvious interest in and love for true cinema. The person who has uploaded it to YouTube has somehow squeezed the image from widescreen to standard, but the film shines nevertheless. I’m not sure why there’s a Russian overdub either, but just ignore it. I think Ms. Johansson should upload the film herself properly and if she does, I’ll change the video link. She has made a film that I’m certain is exactly what she wanted to make. It’s her personal expression of a fleeting and elusive subject. The film’s about being alone and damn well liking it. Kevin Bacon plays the film’s main character who gets dressed at just past 4:00 pm to leave his apartment and take a trip to a nearly empty Coney Island. The film contains only small incidental sounds and very minimal dialog. Its beauty lies in the attention to tiny details of behavior. The multiple clocks in Mr. Bacon’s tiny apartment, all precisely set. His careful re-tying of his shoe. His placement of a hat upon his head and his hesitation when locking his door behind him. These are the details of the lone person who sets out upon a small but important voyage through the terrifying public space. Mr. Bacon’s character puts on the armor of his attire with a resolute dread that I can remember from my own time alone. Ms. Johansson knows exactly what she’s doing. Her character’s trip to Coney Island where he will purchase a hot dog and sit on a bench by the sea is a seeking out of the pleasure of being alone with one’s very own self and the not knowing what will come of that. The uncertainty and the wide open strangeness of possibility when one is all alone in a very busy and enormous world is too much for most people to face.
Reverend Billy Wants New York City and He Can Have It
This is a short documentary called The Gospel According to Reverend Billy, from an outfit called Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers. This guy looks like a preacher but he’s decidedly against what most preachers seem to be preaching in our angelic little country. He’s Reverend Billy and he’s running for mayor in New York City. He thinks Mayor Bloomberg is a corporate Wall Street guy who represents the takeover of the monoculture. He’s right. I lived in New York for eight years in the 1980s. I remember it as being rough, exciting, nervous, overly work-oriented, and dirty. I visited just a few months ago. It’s now an open-air mall with a Starbucks and a Gap. Gee, thanks Rudi Guiliani for your cleanup. Micky Mouse would feel right at home on Times Square. New York is also home to the several thousand creeps on Wall Street who are personally responsible for trashing the U.S. economy and running criminal scams on a worldwide scale. Well, at least we know where they all live, right? When I lived in the city I worked with many different types of people in many businesses. I would always give the same advice to my friends and acquaintances who were looking for jobs: Never Never Never work for the money people. They are vicious and very poorly educated. I recall working for one of the biggest real estate investors in all of New York. He owned some of the famous big buildings. He was also prone to throwing insults around and yelling at employees. He spent eight hours per day for a full week having meetings in his office about the design for his new closet at home. On Friday at about 1:00 pm he emerged to ask me about a pile of papers I was supposed to have finished that week. I had put them all untouched in a pile that I labeled ‘Complete.’ He picked them up and riffled through them for several minutes. Then he threw them at me and screamed, ‘What the f— do you think you’re doing?’ I picked up the phone while giving him a giant smile and called my employment agency. I said, ‘I’m going to put you on the phone with Mr.____ and I’d like you to tell him to kiss my ass.’
As I walked down the hall, he was screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Don’t you people ever even think about sending an a-hole like that over here again!’
Yep, that’s the kind of New York SOB I was back in the 80s. And I haven’t learned a thing. I’d still do it on any sunny Friday afternoon.
New York has about as much cultural energy now as Dallas, Texas. It’s like a zombie apocalypse in Manhattan. Everyone looks like they’re trudging to the office on a Sunday. The East Side – Woody Allen’s favorite – is the land of strange men in khaki dockers who buy baskets in small stores. I’m not sure why Reverend Billy would give a damn about being mayor of a dead city but he’s got my vote of confidence if he wants it.
As for the preacher bit, I’m not sure I like it. It’s some kind of a joke or then again maybe not. He likes the vocal patterns of the preacher for sure, but that’s not all of it. Couldn’t he borrow the vocal technique of the preacher without the costume? Oh nevermind, that would be Bill Clinton.
Via Coilhouse
White House Terrorizes New York City
The Obama administration has committed what amounts to an act of terrorism. The president’s Air Force One backup plane was flown low in banking circles around lower Manhattan, trailed by an F16 fighter plane that appeared to most observers to be giving chase. In an FAA memo released today it became clear that the administration knew the flight could cause panic in New York but threatened the New York City police and the mayor’s office with federal sanctions if they let the secret get out into the public. The president has since apologized and said that he is furious and had no knowledge of the flight. But it’s his plane.
I am becoming increasingly concerned that my support of Mr. Obama may have contributed to placing an absolute incompetent in the office of president. An act like this shockingly callous flyover simply beggars belief. Having lived in New York City for ten years, I know that if you manage to send thousands of New Yorkers running out of their buildings screaming in terror, you have really done something profoundly frightening. New Yorkers are a hardy lot and have a real ‘been there seen that’ attitude. These people were terrified at what was happening in the sky above them. The windows of their buildings were shaking because the plane came in so low. It came right at them! The White House says it was for a ‘photo-op’ so that they could take pictures of their airplane with the Statue of Liberty behind it. Seriously! These people are running the United States.
I think that the hero-worship of Mr. Obama needs to end immediately and we need to ascertain just exactly what is going on here. The NBC video above which shows Obama’s press secretary saying ‘I don’t know’ about the flight is very scary. Perhaps Mr. Obama will consider parking a yellow rental truck in front of an Oklahoma federal building next week for a ‘photo-op.’ That should help build his reputation there, don’t you think?
By the way, NBC news anchor, Brian Williams is furious too and thinks somebody should pay for what happened.
Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition
Photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant took many pictures of subway graffiti during the 1970s and 80s. Their book, Subway Art, became the bible of the graffiti art movement. Chronicle Books is now releasing a deluxe 25th Anniversary edition of the book.
Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition
