Getting animated

Back in the 80s, and maybe even for a brief part of the 90s, my favorite clothes were skorts, my favorite accessory was the slap bracelet, and my favorite movies were animated-- the The Land Before Time perhaps topping the list. Even though I know animated films are all the rage these days -- with many of my friends in Hong Kong raving about Kung-Fu Panda this summer -- I still associate animated films with childhood, and tend to steer clear unless I have a child to entertain.

But in the past week, I've seen two animated features that are making me rethink my aversion to the cartoon set. On Saturday, I checked out a series of presentations that were part of The Wonder Cabinet, a series on "wondrous stuff" organized by the NYU Institute of the Humanities and its director Lawrence Weschler (who teaches me the Fiction of Nonfiction this semester). My favorite presentation from the day was an excerpt from Fears of the Dark, a creepy black-and-white animated short film. A robber creeps into a house in the dead of a snowy night, and ends up the victim rather than the victimizer. The film, with its suspenseful shadows and suggested dangers, was supremely creepy.

With the appetite for animation whetted, I checked out Waltz with Bashir, an Israeli animated film about the massacre in Beirut during Israel's war with Lebanon. It was a deeply disturbing movie in its exploration of the horror of war and its effects on the psyche of Israeli soldiers.

So, I'm coming around on animation, but only those animated films of the disturbing, horrifying, distressing variety.

Birth Announcement: A new blog has been born

Well, it's already a month old, but I have a new blog. It's for one of my classes at NYU, which I have discussed before. The class is called Porfolio-- its tagline is "The Journalism of Ideas." It "brings young journalists together to harness their passions and ideas and develop a cohesive, thematically related body of work."

My body of work is called The Not-So Private Parts. Heh. The theme is that privacy is gradually fading away, due to security needs (surveillance cameras, etc); technology (data breaches, the amount of information we ourselves put online through social networks, etc.); and a culture that celebrates exhibitionism/exposure.

Take a look at my Porfolio profile here.

And take a look at my new baby: The Not-So Private Parts blog. If you have suggestions for improving the private parts, shoot me an e-mail. It feels a bit amorphous now, but I look forward to its developing over the next year. You know, learning to walk, eating solid foods, etc.

A little history of Gramercy Park (Or, getting to know my 'hood)

While I was doing Proquest research on Kips Bay for my movie theater piece, I came across a New York Times article by Charles de Kay from 1905 about my neighborhood: Gramercy. I have to admit that I am not Gramercy's biggest fan. I don't really know any of the bars or restaurants near my place because I tend to seek out other neighborhoods for entertainment, notably the East Village, Williamsburg, and the Lower East Side. Apparently, I've written off everything to the north and west...

There is one little bar near my apartment, called Three Steps, that I've visited twice. The second time, the bartender told us about her acting career--the highlights being a topless appearance on an HBO show and an upcoming movie about a circus freak show--before offering to take us back to the bathroom for some illicit substances. Not exactly my scene, nor Gramercy's. With the exception of that incident, I would describe the neighborhood as a little bland, a little generic. A place for people who want to be in Manhattan close to the Village, but who don't want to pay monster-sized rents.

Anyway, I came across this old article on the neighborhood and discovered some interesting details about the 'hood and its private park, which looks beautiful from outside its gates-- only those living on its borders have keys to enter the fenced-in block-sized park and wander its paths. Even back in 1905, Gramercy had the last remaining private park in the City:

Outsiders are they, rank outsiders, and one can see on their faces a trace of indignation that they, too, cannot play about that splashing fountain, which seems so thin to us today, and disport themselves under the shade of the trees. For this private recreation ground is open only to the owners or occupiers of the houses round about who are compelled by the terms of their purchase or lease to contribute annually to a fund for the maintenance of the park...

[G]enerally speaking the exclusiveness that began fourscore years ago has been maintained, and Gramercy Park today is still a little haven of quiet.

Yes, and still today in 2009. In 1905, Gramercy was being invaded by clubs: the Players Club ("for actors and lovers of the drama"), Columbia University Alumni Club, and the National Arts Club. Columbia has since moved on to the university club cluster near Grand Central, but the other two remain in their mansion dwellings around the Park.

The article seeks to answer the question of the origins of "Gramercy," a corruption of the name given to it by the Dutch who settled the area. The area used to consist of a hill and stream that were called Crummashie Vly and Crummashie Kop. "Crummashie" morphed into "Gramercy" over time. The article says:

[T]here is in English the old word "cramesy" for red or crimson, a word that is known in French and Dutch; so that if the hill where the park now is was of red clay and in the Fall covered with crimson foliage it might have been called by the first settlers Cramesy Kop.

I like that image. It makes me like the neighborhood a wee bit more.

The area was first a 20-acre farm owned by James Duane in 1780, then was purchased by Bank of Commerce founder Samuel Ruggles, whose son divided the land into parcels and sold them off. The private park was landscaped, and the fountain (then valued at $3,000) placed there in 1851. That would be $75K in today's dollars.

These are the illustrations accompanying the article. Things really haven't changed much... well, maybe the hats.

Going to the Awards Dinner as a journalist... or at least as a blogger-journalism-student hybrid

Tomorrow, I head down to D.C. for the NPF Annual Awards Dinner. A short trip, with less than 17 hours actually in the District. The Dinner will be different this year. It's switched from Thursday night to Tuesday night. They've instituted a new dress code: business attire, rather than black tie. And I'll be attending as a non-NPFer for the first time in four years.

A little school assignment

In my Writing and Reporting class, Meryl Gordon asked us to spend two hours somewhere and write a 500-word piece on the place. It was a chance to exercise our descriptive writing muscles. I chose to hang out at a movie theater lobby, looking very much like a girl who had been stood up by her date. Here's the piece I came up with:

A Night At The Movies

Fade in: a massive Loews movie theater in Kips Bay, a little-known New York City neighborhood along the East River. Jacobus Kip, a first-generation Dutch farmer for whom the area is named, is long deceased, his bay filled and the land reclaimed for apartment buildings.

Actors and actresses stare down from faded movie posters at bundled people scurrying past on Second Avenue. A group of three passers-by look up to return the gaze.

Paul Newman wheels by with a brunette in white on his handlebars.
“Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid, right?”
A horse gallops by bearing Peter O’Toole, who wears a white kuffiya and has a sword in hand.
“That’s Lawrence of Arabia.”
A black silhouette of a bicycle against the moon…
“Easy. E.T.”

The theater’s entrance at 30th Street is framed by white lights that alternate between bright and dim for a pale imitation of Hollywood sparkle. The immense high-ceilinged lobby beckons Manhattanites accustomed to cramped apartments and shared offices.

Valentine’s Day candy hearts taped up in the glass entry doors taunt “He’s Just Not That Into You” as movie-seekers hurry in from the cold. Two ever-green potted palm trees flank the entrance, followed by an advertising assault for those making their way to the ticket counter at the lobby’s far end.

To the lobby’s right, a Goliath-sized red shopping bag promotes “Confessions of a Shopaholic;” a seven-foot red-haired actress peers out from the bag, a look of shock on her face. “All she ever wanted was a little credit” reads the tag line. To the left, a massive one-eyed blue gooey blob devours a Dreamworks Monsters vs. Aliens sign.

Sony televisions shout at each other across the room. A wall of six screens show a looping Sprint commercial—“Do more with the Blackberry Curve”—while two screens overhead sing out in support of the Metropolitan Opera.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

The sound of boots across the white-and-black tiled floors competes with the televisions and easy-listening station playing on overhead speakers. A dark theater with a singular movie soundtrack awaits grateful ears.

Those waiting for friends in the lobby perch on ledges, finding entertainment on the small screens of phones and PDAs. Couples wander in, some heading to electronic kiosks with movies already firmly in mind, while others linger in line for the human teller discussing the fifteen staggered options on the movie board in hushed tones.

The loud, deep voice of a 20-something in a hooded white sweatshirt rises above the noise.
“He started laughing hysterically. Just get out of my sight, he said.”
His female companion giggles, and then glances toward the movie board. “Uh oh. 7:05. Glad we got here early.”

Tickets in hand, the couple descend via escalator past Coke, popcorn, and pretzel bite ads to Theaters 11-15. A waterfall of freshly popped popcorn spills into a plastic bin, drenching the room with the smell of butter. Milk duds, Junior Mints, Butterfingers, and Whoppers sing their Siren song, tempting movie-goers before they reach the ticket-taker.

“Do you want anything?” a woman asks her pink-coated friend.
“Maybe…”

Moments later, carrying popcorn ($6.75), soda ($4.75), and a Dasani water bottle ($3.75), they hand their tickets ($12.50) to a red-shirted, bespectacled Loews ticket-taker.

A balding man emerges from a theater, shaking his head.

The ticket-taker resumes a conversation that must have preceded the movie viewing. “I told you. She’s an A-list star, like Julia Roberts,” he says forlornly. “She doesn’t need to do this movie. The story is so bad.”