newyorkette

^{This robin posed for me in the magnolia tree behind the marionette theatre in Central Park today.}

Spring has sprung! ["You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever..."] Central Park is waiting for you! ["Who needs 11968?"]
No matter what Homeland Security says, we’re still not safe from Naomi Campbell ["She was very sweet when I knew her"]
Cab drivers turn out to be not as bad as most of us remember ["Hail to the taxi driver!']
The Bubble Lounge celebrated its 10th birthday in TriBeCa and the mosque didn’t seem to mind at all (only the snitty old TriBeCan neighbors complain, now that their cool comes from Ben Gay, I guess)["Pop!"]
Momus is a must-see at the Whitney Biennial, he’ll be there tomorrow (April 1st). See upcoming events for the “Conversations on art fugitives”in the right sidebar here. ['Momus among us"]
And last but not least, RIP: Hal the Central Park Fox.

^{Hal, the Central Park fox. (image: carolita johnson)}

Like many of us who ended up in New York, Hal appeared out of nowhere and survived for a while.
They don’t know what killed Hal, who died as he was being tagged before release.
RIP, Hal. We were rooting for you, you wild thing.

Story and pix/videos of Hal’s Central Park adventure, and his untimely demise here.

^{The Central Park “Sheep Meadow tote.” (image: carolita johnson)}

Not me! Martha’s Vineyard? Sag Harbor? Get on outside to Central Park. The robins are scouring the hills for worms like keystone cops searching for clues in the countryside. The loons are on the lake, and the pervs are lurking. As my dirty little friend likes to say, “It’s tit season!” (Is he a birdwatcher? or not? I leave it up to you.)

^{Naomi was always very nice to me. (image: carolita johnson)}

I was a lousy model. But at least, since I wasn’t on drugs, I remember things. At my last Dolce & Gabbana show, I remember two things. To wit, Linda Evangelista waiting in line backstage in front of me, looking curiously at Amira (the other short model, me being the next shortest. They called me “La Petite”).
“Who’s she?“, she asked me.
“That’s Amira.”
“Is she, like, big?”
“Yeah, well, you know, big in France.”
“But is she big like… Like me big? Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that!”

But before that, while waiting for make-up and hair, I’d gone to the racks to see what I’d be put through this show (not anticipating the last minute change to the black transparant dress that led to the thong incident — correction: making that THREE things I remember). I’d prised apart two crowded racks to view my line-up only to discover Naomi Campbell sitting on the floor between them with her handbag in her lap, reading a book and looking as lonely as can be.

Naomi Campbell arrested at her Park Ave. Apartment: [HuffPo]
Naomi Campbell and the blackberry of destruction: [Gawker]

^{Taxi-scented air freshener. (Image: carolita johnson)}

My taxi drivers of the year:
1- Paul Robeson’s nephew (or so he purported himself) who sang in Paul Robeson’s voice, honest to goodness, really, but slightly off-key, from east 10th street to the Roundabout Theatre one Christmas Eve. (I think it really was his nephew, in a quirky Christmas half-miracle.)
2- The guy from Spain who introduced me to the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
3 - The various Hindu men who have asked me if I’d like to marry them, too many to name individually here. (Let them thank their lucky stars for my compassionate declinings! )
5- The Buddhist who gave me the booklet on spirituality for my mother (unfortunately she was way too rude to me that day so I never gave it to her. She’ll have to be reborn as a bug instead).
6- The mysterious, saturnine Korean lady at the wheel of a cab with a man’s ID in the window, driving me up the FDR while I wondered what she’d done with the body.

Cabby hailed as city’s best: [NYP]
Inspired by the Post’s story, Gothamist invited cabby horror stories and got surprisingly few. [Best Cabbie Ever?]

^{Desert Island Asteriod (image: carolita johnson)}

I’ve never been one of those cartoonists who say, “I can’t believe they didn’t buy this, it’s great!” about my own work. That said, I don’t lose all affection for certain cartoons that never sold. So I decided that Thursdays were going to be for finding opportunities to get them out of the reject pile and onto your computer screen. Feel free to tell me why you think it didn’t sell! I’d love your feedback!

This one is being resurrected in honor of DAWN’s resurrection by NASA, weeks after killing it. This means that we’ll be getting images of asteriod “Vesta,” it’s first mission in 2011, four years after DAWN blasts off in the summer of 2007. (I counted that on my fingers, you skeptics who don’t believe I have number-difficulties that impede my tax preparing abilities!).

Vesta was a big part of my life when I used to study the incidence in political rhetoric of images of female chastity (and the lack thereof) in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (ie.: “the barbarians are coming to rape our women!”). I like thinking our fallen idols are still out there, transferred from our imaginations to somewhere else always just out of our reach. I like them better out there than waiting depressed in the dark space under my kitchen sink (like Ajax).

^{The Late Bird (image: carolita johnson)}

This picture is the summary of my life right now. I became incorporated last year because self-employment taxes were killing me. What I didn’t know — till last night at 4am — is that corporation tax time is March 15th, not April 15th.

Frantic, gathering receipts, trembling fingers dropping them, anxious eyes unable to find the dates on them… that’s me. My accountant, who tells me I can’t afford his rates for this nonsense, has assigned me an assistant. Tomorrow I lock myself in a room with Sherry, who I will pay to sit with me and get me through the expense organization process and then Keith the CPA will prepare my tax return and negociate with the IRS on my behalf.

I can’t even add with a calculator without making mistakes, much less prepare a tax return or speak rationally (and without tears of vague remorse and existential despair) to the feds. Dyslexia, attention span problems, emotional issues tied to money — all these artist-related quirks become exponentially magnified under pressure. My advice to freelance artist-types like me? Get professional help!

I hope you’re reading this in the park via WiFi! If not, get your ass outside! I’ll be back later with something besides a photo. This is no time to be sitting in front of your computer!

^{“Happy Cork” for The Bubble Lounge’s 10th birthday (image by carolita johnson)}

I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with work lately, but it will all be rewarded tonight. Because the thing that’s been keeping my hands occupied this last week is champagne! The Bubble Lounge, which you will have heard of either because of some disgruntled TriBeCans, or because you love a good champagne bar, is celebrating its 10th birthday tonight. I did the invitations as well as 6 drawings for posters, one of which you see above. I don’t know how many will be up during the private party tonight, but I’m hoping all of them will. All depends on the printer today.

The Bubble Lounge is at 228 West Broadway, two steps away from not only the now infamous well-hidden Sufi mosque, but from the Franklin Street subway station. I personally enjoy the low light, the great live music, the comfy armchairs, and of course the champagne. ( The good stuff doesn’t give you a headache.) I’ve participated in a pilot champagne “class,” during which a few friends tasted different types of champagne, learned about the region, and best of all, participated in the “sabering” of a bottle of champagne. That it, using a sabre to knock the top off a bottle of champagne, as, I imagine, victorious French warriors used to do in days of old when they’d forgotten or couldn’t find their corkscrews.

You can even arrange to have the class done all in French like my French-learning friends did (with translations of tricky words provided upon demand or upon eloquent expressions of perplexity on your face).

^{Kura Sushi, on the corner of 1st avenue and east 4th street.}

You’d think finding a great place to have sushi in New York would be easy. It’s pretty easy downtown, to the point that I had trouble deciding on a place to review today. But I’ve suffered several very mediocre plates of sushi in the last week trying to find us a good sushi Table for One uptown. I have to admit I’m very picky, but I’m assuming you are, too.

Back to the sure bets. This week’s is Kura Sushi in the East Village. I always liked the name of this place on east 4th and 1st ave. Because the “Kura” reminds me of that line in Carmina Burana: mortuus in anima, curam gero cutis (dead in the soul, I shall look after the flesh). When I’m exhausted and dead in the soul, sushi is always the cure. Sushi, jazz, and a nice glass of Otokoyama saké.

Everything is good here at Kura, including the music. Someone here likes Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis, which is the first good sign. Read the rest of this entry »

^{Momus among us at the Whitney Biennial.}

I wonder how many people visiting the Whitney’s Biennial exhibition thought the guy sliding around the galleries with the eye-patch, trendy clothing and mini-megaphone (through which he insinuated his “disinformational” quips into their perception of the art they were viewing) was just some NY weirdo cleverly managing not to get thrown out.

When I first heard him speaking softly into his mini-megaphone I was too far away to make out what he was saying, only noticing that as soon as he’d uttered his piece, he’d immediately proceed into the next room like some nerdy, slightly giddy art sprite empowered by his freedom of speech. I followed the brim of his hat threading between the heads of other people like a dolphin’s dorsal fin along the surface of the ocean (emboldened to pursue it once I’d realized it didn’t belong to a shark). Waiting for him to come flying out of the water and let out another little kibbitzy remark before diving back in to swim underwater to the next room.

Since nobody around me dared react, or even ask (when did New Yorkers become so polite and restrained?), I ventured to ask the guard: “Who is this guy? Is he part of the exhibition?” The guard burst out laughing, as if that were a good one. “Yeah, heh heh! He, oh, heh, heh! He’s part of the exhibition, heh heh!” Apparently he wasn’t quite sure himself, but was relieved to have his awkward doubt punctured with a bit of humorous small talk.

“After you left, Sinead O’Connor came into the museum. I did my line about the Steve Parrino room transforming at 6pm into “a nihilist discotheque” and she said “Uh-huh…” in a sarcastic tone of voice and swished out,”

Read the rest of this entry »

^{Who am I kidding? I’ll be doing my reading at the laundromat. (Image: carolita johnson)}

If you haven’t got around to a thorough reading of this week’s The New Yorker yet, it’s time to go straight to the fiction (because most of the GOAT is already past due). Gary Shteyngart’s “A Love Letter,” which I can’t post a link to here since it’s not available on TNY’s website, should be begun on the subway or train ride home (not at the driver’s seat of your car or truck), and finished at home, at the laundromat (like me), or at one of your favorite Tables for One.

I hope it’s intellectual-propertiedly okay for me to type out a few morcels to whet your appetite:

The narrator (300-pound Russian-Jew Misha “Snack-Daddy” Vainberg) making plans to become a Belgian by subterfuge, pictures himself:

“[...] sitting at a zippy Belgian café watching a multicultural woman in a thong eating a frankfurter. Did such things happen in Brussels? In New York they happened all the time.”

A dream sequence you’ll taste in your own mouth, as the narrator literally drools with anticipation about his future:

“I stuck my hand inside my heart and took out precisely eight U.S. dollars, which I gave to her. Our hands barely touched. “What’s going to make you love me again?” I asked.
“Take a bite,” she said.
The apple flooded my mouth with freshness, as if I were biting the color green. I tasted pear, as promised, but also rosewater and white wine and my beautiful dead mother’s sweet cheek. The roof of my mouth froze in wonder, as if stroked by an invisible ice cube. I tried to speak, but only gurgling came out. I wanted to hug Rouenna, but she lifted up her hand to stop me.
“Be a man,” she said.
I gurgled some more, flapping my arms in front of me.
“Make me proud.”

Then, when civil war breaks out in Absurdistan (yes, Absurdistan), the descriptions of perplexity, perception and action come giddily together with cinematic clarity:

I was looking at a convoy of stubby Caterpillars outfitted with battering rams, which I realized were Soviet T-62 tanks [...].
The sound of heavy machine-gun fire reverberated throughout the city. It was time to do something important, and manly and American. “Go, go, go motherfucker!” I yelled to Sakha. The jeep’s alarm was blaring and a rear window had been partly smashed, but the imperious Hyatt logo had apparently scared off the thieving locals.
A passing T-62 had begun to rotate its barrel our way, like a slow child trying to make friends. “Drive!” I shouted to Sakha.

At first, I thought I wasn’t going to like this story. I had a suspicion Shteyngart was trying to gratuitously palm off the kind of flippant metaphors and outlandish expressions that I’d found annoying in my first Salman Rushdie experience. But the more I read, the more I liked. By the time “Snack Daddy” arrives in Absurdistan, you’ll be hooked, if not before. I realized I’d been seduced me the moment “Snack Daddy” notices that the T-62 “had begun to rotate its barrel our way, like a slow child trying to make friends.”

I won’t tell you the ending, but I’ll tell you it’s the typical trade-off of one’s desire for one’s humanity, complete with the “and then just as he had everything in his grasp it all slipped away” ending we’re used to these days. And yet you’re left wanting a “to be continued…”

Which may be exactly what is hoped for, since presumably this has all been a mere exerpt of his book, “Absurdistan,” which will be published in May.

^{And a “Have a nice weekend!” from the three of me. (Photo taken in the Café Conde’s hall of mirrors, which makes you look skinny after lunch no matter where you stand.)}

This week started out being all about homographs! (Look it up if you don’t know: here.)
About Subway and the subway. [Live from Washington Heights: meet me at the Subway by the subway]
About Jon Friedman and Jon Friedman writing in about “the New Yorker” and The New Yorker”: [Friedman snubs uppercase "T" in The New Yorker.]
Then came a bit of gleeful throwing of Maureen Dowd’s MoDo into “Rummy’s” face, tempered by some serious grumping about TimesSelect’s annoying way of pimping their journalists. [Stubborn old gray lady!]
“The Peruvian New Yorker,” Etiqueta Negra, came into my life with it’s “Sleep Issue”: [The Sunday of Each Day]
And here’s wishing Tom Suozzi a fat chance with his “S” for Suozzi ads.
Remember, Big Nick is your friend! [Tables for One: Big Nick is your friend], but if you’re a duck, Mario Batali isn’t! [Make that three with the pig's head]

^{(image: carolita johnson)}

Since I can’t really afford most of the places reviewed therein, I love it when TNY’s Tables for Two features a slightly gross-out review. And needless to say, even when I’m grossed out, I’m always grossed out in delight.

This week Nick Paumgarten reviews Mario Batali’s Del Posto, in which we can, depending who we are and what tastes we’ve cultivated, either drool over the thought of the pig’s head in broth, or get kinda queasy.

My favorite line is:

Some of the dishes may have you looking around for the hidden cameras: the pici, for example, a hollow pasta served here with black truffles, coxcombs, and duck testicles, which are bigger than you might imagine and do not taste like chicken, or duck.

I do love reading, cutting out, and saving the more delicious Tables for Two to refer to whenever someone wants to take me out to dinner. And of course I know well that my own Tables for One isn’t nearly as well-written as I am still just a humble bloggette. I have much to taste, and much more to aspire to!

[TNY: Tables for Two]

^{(Montage inspired by this.)}

The Huffington Post featured a post today about a Maureen Dowd article that was thrown in Rumsfeld’s face, entitled: Read The Maureen Dowd Column Rumsfeld Was Reacting To…, with what appeared to be a portion of her column followed by a “Read entire story here” which directs you (if you’re like me and won’t pay for Times Select) to the “To read the rest of this article you must subscribe to TimesSelect” page.

A few replies to that post were indignant objections to being duped into getting that annoying page, by people who thought they were gonna read Maureen Dowd for free! Dream on, boys and girls! So I replied asking if anyone would care to cut and past the entire article for the benefit of those who are on strike against TimesSelect.

I say we all go on strike against TimesSelect until they come to see reason and do things the iTunes way. Surely they realize they’d make more money selling one article at 99 cents at a time, rather than by trying to extort a subscription out of people like me who buy the paper intermittently? Or maybe they just don’t have enough confidence in their writers to let them show us their wares day to day and let the reader decide who comes home with them?

For example, I’m not paying for a subscription for MoDo, who is just too pop journalism-y for me to pay for unfettered access to. And I”m certainly not paying for dingbat Joyce Purnick, who delusionally thought she’d spread the word about under-reported crimes against Asian women by publishing her story on a limited availability venue.

NB: for anyone who noticed the mispelling of MoDo’s name in my reference earlier (thus resulting in the impression of a “MoDown”, here’s both the original and the corrected post headline:

Found this on the AFP ticker after thinking the day’s newsreading would reap no further fruit. Apparently France+Women+Violence add up to “France raises marriage age to 18, like men.” Who knew?

[AFP ticker]

^{(Image: Carolita Johnson)}

Hispanic owned businesses are opening in record numbers in New York, says the NYPost: N.Y. HITS NUMERO UNO SPOT

When I read that article this morning, I thought it was a pity that the siesta wasn’t among the cultural influences brought to us by Hispanic New Yorkers. Sipping my tea, and thinking how lucky I am to be a freelancer with a right to a siesta after being up all night working (a right I pay for by being called “The American Who Sleeps All Day” by the hardworking Hispanics in my building), I supposeed Hispanics in New York will be too busy working their nalgas off to maintain the custom of “the Sunday of every day,” or “LA SIESTA: El domingo de cada día.”

If you read this article, you’ll learn that the word “siesta” comes from the latin word “sexta,” which refers to noon, the sixth hour of the waking day, or Roman half-time. You’ll also learn this incredible industrial secret (shh!): apparently companies in the United States, China, and Germany are beginning to recognize the siesta as a basic workers right (mostly because they noticed that the siesta improves productivity)! I hope this right will be institutionalized by the time I’m forced to get a regular job.

Emdashes notes the Peruvian literary magazine, Etiqueta Negra, which has been dubbed “The Peruvian New Yorker” by its fans. If you read Spanish at all (and we are in New York, so I’m assuming there are plenty of us who do), practice reading good Spanish by reading Etiqueta Negra. And while it’s a huge compliment to be compared to The New Yorker, I have to say that I find the content of Etiqueta Negra, at least in this issue (The Sleep Issue) is much lighter reading, in a good way.

If you can’t read Spanish, read Em’s post (in English) about the two brothers from the Andes Mountains who started it up. [Emdashes]

Buenas noches!

^{I know. This isn’t a pitbull. It’s a german shephard thinking, “But I could bite you just as bad.”}

If you haven’t already seen it or received it by email (it’s the top emailed-article in The Onion), this is a must-read: Poverty-Stricken Africans Receive Desperately Needed Bibles. A cynical, but ringing-all-too-true must-read. If you don’t believe me, go to the Born-Again Christian camp up in Canandaigua Lake I attended from ages 12 to 16 (of my own volition, as field work and cheap vacation — the first summer propelled me into the autumn thinking I was possessed by the devil, till a little rational thinking took over and served to intensify my curiosity.)

If you need to refresh your palate after that one, try this one:
Rumsfeld: Iraqis Now Capable Of Conducting War Without U.S. Assistance
Still too close to home? Try this bit of fluff (and feathers):
Chicken Feeling Better

Meanwhile, over at gladwell.com the pitbull paradox continues to draw nothing but pitbull love/hate replies, and nothing about the pharmaceutical half of the comparison TNY writer Malcom Gladwell makes to illustrate the perception of statistics in various instances, if I recall the original article at all anymore.

I think his next post oughtta contain a single word: “Pitbull.” He could stand by with a stopwatch and wait to see how many pitbull love/hate replies arrive within seconds of clicking “publish.”

Jon Friedman’s article on The New Yorker’s “snubbing” (getting only five nominations instead of twenty-one) by the National Magazine Awards was brought to my attention by Emdashes. And as I read it I found myself increasingly irritated, not by the National Mag Awards “snub” (you can’t win ‘em all, can you?), but by his snubbing of the upper case “T” eleven out of the thirteen times he referred to “The New Yorker.” Now I wouldn’t normally be so naggy about such a thing, but it is a literary magazine, after all. If he found it too hard to type it all out correctly, he could do like we all do, and just type “TNY” which works for me.

Maybe I’m just grumpy and need my nap.

Or maybe I’m just cranky because all of us cartoonists have been taken to task by Owen in Illustration at the mag, who has enjoined us to be a little more diligent about handing in nice drawings. Drawings, for example, with decent and human-looking hands (no blobs, no sausage fingers please). Nah, that doesn’t bother me. I love feedback. I told him it was a pleasure after three years to finally get some critique! I used to think, “surely I’m not so perfect that nobody never has anything they’d like to see me do differently in a drawing?” But the criticism was never forthcoming. It never forthcame.

Till today, that is. So it was a bit like having gone out with a guy for three years thinking all is well, and then he tells you you’ve never been any good in bed. But I’m happy. We’ve got it out in the open now. This is honesty in a relationship! He’ll be liaising with us cartoonists, letting us know how to better ourselves (something we’re not really naturally inclined to do). And at least I’ll be able to stop wondering, “was it something I drew?” when a purchased cartoon never gets printed.

(image: carolita johnson)

I can’t work. The neighbor upstairs is either rearranging all his furniture for the fourteenth time or getting nailed (or both), or has fought with his ex-boyfriend again and is dancing the anguish out of his system (or all of the above) and he’s got this music playing that is splitting all the atoms in my head and making the windows rattle. It’s killing me, but he does this so rarely that I don’t want to get on his nerves by complaining when he really needs some musical purging. Does he complain when I need to pump up the ABBA now and then? It’ll be over in an hour. So I’ve been reading the news.

I found an article in the Post that reminded me of the day I was going up the subway escalator at 125th street, and an old lady ahead of me says to her middle-aged son as she peers through the dirty plastic windows, “My how times change! You see that Subway? It used to be a Taco Bell!” I wondered to myself what the difference was, as it was just one fast-food chain franchise replacing another. Her nostalgia struck me as ironic enough to write it down and try to do a cartoon about it.

But when I’d finished drawing, and was penning the caption in, I realized it wasn’t gonna work. How would anyone know I was talking about Subway, the sandwhich chain, and not Subway, the subway station? So I changed it to Blimpie’s and Burger King. I was never happy with it that way, so I just kept it to myself. Till I found this article about how Subways (the sandwich shop kind) have outnumbered Subways (the subway station kind) in Manhattan.

Apparently the Subway (sandwich Subway) people hadn’t been aware of it till the Post let them know.
[NYP]