Skatopia: 88 Acres of Anarchy
A good Memorial Day flick (if you are interested in hillbilly skate punks)!
It is available on Netflix, here.
the new decadence
Fushimi: A Cheap & Plastique wet dream
I have walked by the spot where Fushimi is now open for business many times over the past few months (and hundreds of times over the past 7+ years; pre-Fushimi, pre-condo, when Driggs was desolate and one of the grittier streets of the hood) as the restaurant was being built. I was slightly wary of the what was going on behind the fishy logo emblazoned double doors, of course, as we tend to be of new & shiny things popping up in OUR neighborhood (especially when they are attached to new & shiny expensive condominiums, which have taken the place of our art galleries and thrift stores).
The first time I noticed a (NEON!!!) light on in the window, when walking home from the train a couple of weeks ago, I peered in through the decorative window treatments and was absolutely shocked and surprised at the fantastiqueness I saw within. This place was special! I knew people were going to hate on it but not me, this was seriously a Cheap & Plastique wet dream!
On Saturday afternoon, after trudging through the snow and cold, looking for a beat up stool for an art installation for a friend, I noticed that Fushimi was actually open for business. I wandered in, looked around and grabbed a take out menu. I was completely blown away. The interior was decadent and grandiose, space age, mod, absolutely fabulous; it was the sort of place I daydreamed of hanging out in when I was a young lass in the sticks, pining for a more glamorous life in the city.
I begged my boyfriend to go to Fushimi later in the evening for dinner and he obliged. Even he, who tends to be a harsh critic of most things, was amazed at the gaudy beauty and psychedelic insanity of the interior, it’s hedonistic charm warmed the cockles of his cold black heart.
The service was excellent, there was no snobbery or attitude, and the food and drink (mmmmm, Mango Sangria!) were delicious! But for me the interior was the most special part of the experience, it was beyond amazing, really! Cross the the most over the top 60′s, sci-fi movie you can think of with what you imagine Peter Saville’s home to look like and that is Fushimi.
I want photo shoots, I want fabulous parties! I want this place all to myself to sip Mango Sangria whilst staring into the neon reflections in the mirror-ball ceiling, contemplating life, or nothing at all. I want to go back right now!
Stay away haters of fun!
Better pictures at Gothamist.
sauvage
Excited to be back in New York City!
This may be the greatest video ever (I also have been stuck in suburbia for 4 days with no contact with the outside world so I might be overexcitable!)
WOW!
& this may be the most inspiring video ever!
Double WOW!
Renaldo and the Loaf
Happy Friday peoples!
Here is some music to drive your brain crazy, provided by Mister Andy Shea.
I like these mens.
From their website:
“Well we didn’t set out to be anonymous at all. Unlike the Residents, our real names have always been known, but I guess the personas we associated with our music were our alter-egos. However, the idea of us having alter-egos started before RatL was born….a story.
Back in 1977, we used to go out to the pub with a bunch of friends who were, like us, into The Diceman by Luke Rheinhardt…we used to decide on our actions and do odd, but harmless, things by throwing a dice…like how we’d dress, where we’d go, what we’d do, etc. There were usually about ten of us and, depending how the dice fell, we could all enter a pub in a line walking backwards waving to everybody, sit with our left ears against the wall saying, ‘there are sheep on the moors said Lambert’ (Ivor Cutler was our hero), randomly stop still and pose like a male fashion model or have a heated and lengthy argument about a ficticious scientific concept called Wipperwill’s Principle…it was even funnier if we managed to involve a member of the public in this. These are just a couple of examples – new ideas and lists were drawn up each week to try out.
Anyway, each person in the group who did this had what we called a ‘dice name’ and they would always be called that. Usually you were given your name by another member of the group and Dave was called Ted (the Loaf) and I was called Renaldo Malpractice…..later we devised our own extra names Josef Sneff (Dave) and Hooper Struve (me) who became our alter-alter-egos for our first cassette album.”
Tabloid
I want to see this movie. I like crazy people.
From the IFC site: The unlikely subject of the Oscar-winning Morris’s (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line) latest is the inimitable Joyce McKinney — a Miss Wyoming with an IQ of 168 whose single-minded devotion to love led her across the globe, into jail and onto the front pages of 1970s tabloids. Wildly entertaining, laugh-out-loud funny and unsettlingly bizarre, this is a story so unbelievable — from kidnap cottages and manacled Mormons to risqué photography, magic underwear and celestial sex, not to mention a Korean cloning lab — it could only be true.
Showtimes here.
ryan trecartin at PS1
Excited to check out the new Ryan Trecartin exhibit at PS1 this weekend!
I-BE AREA
Any Ever
ANY EVER (Trailer), Ryan Trecartin PS1 from Ryan Trecartin on Vimeo.
NY Times review here.
Flabulous
The Holy Mountain
“borderline crazy but in a good way”
IT CAME FROM KUCHAR
watched a bit of this kuchar brothers documentary last night while letting the front part of my apartment air out– i was trying to avoid breathing in the gas that my stove emitted after a small cooking mishap, by hiding out in my bedroom. death by gas inhalation did not seem like a very fun prospect last night! although keeping my apartment windows wide open during an insane blizzard was also not the most fun experience ever. BUT i am here now, perhaps a bit sniffly but at least still breathing, so i guess that is all that really matters. and there was laughter. and who doesn’t like laughter?
i like strange, eccentric people & the kuchars were most excellent freak magnets.
i quite enjoyed the the kuchar star interviews in this documentary, the filmmaker does a fabulous job highlighting the weirdos that were part of the kuchar’s early scene. plus almost every amazing underground/cult filmmaker is in the film praising the kuchar’s talent! they deserve wider recognition, i say! but not everyone appreciates overdramatization, crazy people, very creative makeup application, lewd behavior, campiness, and absurdity as much as i (and john waters) do!
a good friend of mine took a class at SFAI with george k. in the mid-nineties and i was always kind of jealous that she got to experience his wackiness/genius first hand. i still have a vhs copy of the film she made with him somewhere in the far reaches of my closet!
NY Times review here.
leave a comment