NYU alums and other lovers of Gotham’s rock ‘n’ roll history scramble to save the Bottom Line, one of the most venerable nightclubs in Greenwich Village. If you get a chance, please take a moment to check out the site and/or sign the petition. It’d be a tremendous shame if such a classic New York institution was destroyed for the sake of a dorm and a few classrooms.
Category: North America
From Pelennor to Petersburg.
Members of the fanboy press see 20 minutes of RotK, and they sound superb (Spoilers here about how certain scenes play out.) Meanwhile, the trailer for Cold Mountain, that other major Oscar-contending peak (besides Mt. Doom), is now online. I’m all for Civil War tales, but ah have to staht a-wunnderin’ about Jude and Miss Nicole’s accents after watching this.
Mutombo to MSG?
The Sixers appear to pass on Mutombo, meaning he’s probably Knicks-bound as rumored. Well, since the Post thinks this will actually facilitate the Van Exel trade, I’m all for it. Update: It’s official…Deke’s a Knick.
The Governator.
Lock up your daughters…Arnold wins handily in California. (Gray Davis, contemplate this on the tree of woe.) Y’know, I never figured Predator and The Running Man to be two-Governor pictures, but there you have it. Well, here’s hoping Schwarzenegger can find a way to extricate Cali from its disastrous fiscal quagmire…Somehow I don’t think repealing the car tax is going to help much.
Start Spreading the News.
The Voice releases its annual Best of NY guide for 2003. Time to start explorin’.
The Forgetful Pachyderm.
The recall madness in California finally comes to an end. I must say, the past week or so has been enormously instructive in shedding light on the depths of hypocrisy within the GOP. Only a few years ago, the Republicans pushed America to constitutional crisis because they claimed to believe that sexual immorality was an impeachable executive offense. This week, the Republicans have shown that, not only do they not care about executive offenses, they don’t even give a whit about sexual immorality. Ridiculous and shameful. And then consider Florida, Texas, California…again and again, the GOP has run roughshod over the principle of fair elections in the name of their own lust for power. At the end of the day, is there no level below which this party will not sink?
Seeking Deke.
With their earlier designs on Nick Van Exel apparently stalled, the Knicks plan (once again) to try for Dikembe Mutombo. Hmm. I guess having Mutombo around would help the height-challenged Knicks…but if we were looking for a 40-something center, why’d we ever trade Patrick Ewing in the first place?
Life and How to Live It.
So R.E.M. came to town Saturday night and played probably the best show I’ve seen by Athens’ finest. (This is my fourth over the past decade.) First the setlist:
1. Finest Worksong 2. What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? 3. Driver 8 4. Drive 5. Animal 6. Fall On Me 7. Daysleeper 8. Bad Day 9. The One I Love 10. World Leader Pretend 11. (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville 12. The Great Beyond 13. Country Feedback |
14. Losing My Religion 15. Find The River 16. She Just Wants To Be 17. Walk Unafraid 18. Man On The Moon 19. Life And How To Live It |
So all in all, a truly excellent show. There were other R.E.M. songs they’re playing on this tour that I’d have loved to hear (Exhuming McCarthy, Feeling Gravity’s Pull), but they played my two favorites (and my top two requests) — Fall on Me and Country Feedback — so I left happy. I was particularly impressed with Walk Unafraid and She Just Wants to Be, two songs off Up and Reveal respectively that really came into their own tonight, when Peter Buck chose them to show off his considerable guitar mojo. And the band wisely skipped some of their more saccharine moments — Everybody Hurts or Strange Currencies, for example — to showcase old hits (Rockville, Gardening) and political tone poems (Final Straw and World Leader Pretend, a special treat.) In sum, Stipe, Buck and Mills still got it, and I’m very much looking forward to their next swing through the area.
ABT Returns.
It’s that time of year again. ABT revs up for its City Center schedule at the end of the month [All dates/Gill’s dates.] Gillian is also featured prominently in the advertising campaign for this fall’s run, as indicated by the pic at right (now gracing brochures and subway stops around the city.) Get your tickets before they sell out!
Buried, but not Dead.
New York prepares for a mass re-burial of over 400 Colonial-era slaves in the spot where they were found 12 years ago. Perhaps this ceremony will help to encourage more formal and historic recognition of the city’s relationship to slavery. (As the article notes, Gotham once held more slaves than any other city but Charleston.) And as New York, so too the nation — While the Holocaust Museum serves as an important and necessary reminder of how nations ostensibly grounded in Enlightenment ideals can go terribly, terribly wrong, it’s a bit glaring that we have such a fine museum in Washington dedicated to Germany’s most grievous sin, without any comparable historic institution focusing on our own. A National Museum of Slavery is well past due, and, Civil War importance aside, it should really be on the National Mall, not in Fredericksburg.