Regrets of 09

We can't believe T-Pain had a Christmas Party and didn't invite us!



Other things we regret not doing more of in 09: Booze Cruises,



Karaoke, Family time, Collage, Museum Going, Picnics,



Polaroid Photoshoots. Let's make 2010, the start of not just a new year, but a new decade, a reason to outsmart the odds, crown the underdogs and keep on Pomping!

Throwback

What Do I Get?

I woke up with this song lodged deep in my head. Ah well, there are worse songs to wake up to, but this seems bratty given the holiday season.
Gotta love those Buzzcocks.



-Kastoory

Snowed in

The snow makes the holiday seem more real, and pressing. If I could choose one day to be Christmas, it would probably be yesterday. Snow outside and cozy inside with chili and punch. The party ends but hot toddies continue and we eat magic brownies and have a rooftop snowball fight while listening to people playing in snow and laughing as hard as us all over town. And by town I mean Bushwick.
Oh and this clip made me laugh so hard it hurt. The Soup is such a great way to keep abreast of hilarious reality show moments without having to watch entire depressing blocks of said shows.

-Kastoory

Hard

Kind of love Rihanna's post Brown toughness. But confused by her aggressively oversexed vibe. Thoughts?

Bizz Buzz

There are movies you see for the plot, and movies you see for the cast. For me, “Did you hear about the Morgans?” new rom-com starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant was the latter. Who cares about the silly premise (a high-powered Manhattan couple rediscover their romance after they relocate to the Wild West) when those two superstars are involved? Not this girl. Off I went to the film’s Monday night premiere to find out just how much fun they had making it.



“It was wonderful,” gushed stunning SJP, clad in black confection by hot new designer Sophie Theallet. “I loved working with Hugh, I loved the director. It was just a really nice way to spend 4 months.”
Indeed, who would object to spending a few months with Hugh Grant? Certainly not Mary Steenburgen, who portrays “a rough-riding, bad guy-catching, rifle-shooting Western woman” in the film.



“Hugh and I had a little giggling problem,” revealed Steenburgen, with hubby Ted Danson by her side. “I don’t know what happened, but we brought out the worst in each other.”

If the Santa Fe set of the film sounds like it was all fun and games –that’s because it was. According to Kim Shaw, the adorable up-and-coming actress who spends much of the film in cut-off shorts and a cowboy hat, the cast “played lots of games off set, like 'Running Charades' Mary Steenburgen’s favorite!”

Jesse Leibman, who makes his big-screen debut as Hugh Grant’s assistant, even told me that famous funnyman Bill Murray “crashed” the film’s New York set one night. But for all the cast’s merrymaking, they had some serious praise for the leading lady. “I found Sarah Jessica to be genuinely enchanting,” cooed Grant, oozing his trademark British charm. “She was very kind to me, very supportive. She nurtured me, and was always nice about the clothes I was wearing.”



If it seemed that Grant suffered from the same problem I do –thinking of SJP and her alter ego, the clotheshorse Carrie Bradshaw, as one in the same –who could blame either of us? For there was her “Sex and the City” comrade Cynthia Nixon dashing down the red carpet in a Miranda-worthy Armani frock, and… wait, is that Kim Catrall? Holy Manolos – it was!



And before my very eyes, SJP bumped right into Catrall, pulled her in for an affectionate hug, and let out her signature Carrie squeal –all the while I stood there wondering, why would anyone ever want to leave this city? Stuff this good only happens in Manhattan.

-Linley Taber
Entertainment Editor: Lori Bizzoco

Fame Monster

Went too far?



Photo: David LaChapelle

Open Invitation

Bored of debauched holiday parties yet? Try sipping slowly and taking in some up and coming talent for the MFA Fine Arts Department Open Studios at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). It's a great chance to meet any of the 64 artists in the department and chat about recent work in their studios.
(Image: Matthew Craven)


(Image: Maria Duran)


(Image: Yonatan Ullman)


(Image: Bryn Mcconnell)

MFA Fine Arts Department Open Studios
Friday, December 18, 12 - 8pm
Saturday, December 19, 12 - 6pm
Reception: Thursday, December 17, 5 - 9pm
133/141 West 21 Street, 8th and 9th floors
Free and open to the public
Information at 212.592.2010

Wish List

All I want for Christmas (or whatever non-denominational, exploitative, gift-giving holiday people celebrate) are these things:


These are ridiculously beautiful, and the design makes it sound better... brilliant. Little Horn Speakers are a must have for the disgustingly rich (don't even ask how much they cost, and if you look it up and have a heart attack, don't say I didn't warn you.)


This kind of looks like the Christmas tree my dad brought for our first Christmas ever, when we moved to New York from Dubai. And the winter was so bitterly cold, and every night I dreamt of home, but would wake up in this freezing, grimy, sad city. No gardens or sunshine in sight. We still don't celebrate it, but I miss my tree, this picture doesn't do it justice (but it's the closest I could find).


I want the second season of True Blood, so I can get the saccharine taste of Twilight out of my mouth. Or maybe I want hot vampire sex to keep me warm through the winter. Or maybe I just want to catch up and see that last episode again before it begins right where it left off.


I just want this album, but am too embarrassed to get it for myself, even though most pop-haters agree, this girl is for real.

But Santa, even if I get none of these, just some peace of mind would be great-thanks!

-Kastoory

Goodnight, Mr. Hand

Vicious

Lou Reed, the Muppet King.

Quoted

One of the curses of being in a post-modern era is the feeling that everything has been said and done before, probably much better than any way you can say it or do it. I feel that most of the apathy and laziness of our generation comes from holding that belief.
However, there are times, when I am going through a varied and multi-dimensional inner lifescape, that quotes are the only things that feel relevant or even matter.
When I was younger I quoted Nikki Giovanni and Francesca Lia Block (or when I was really young it was probably Whitney Houston, and then Fiona Apple). Then it was all my professors at Bennington. But now, I find them everywhere, scrawled on a bathroom wall, in last weeks episode of Ugly Betty and of course in poems, always in poems.
This weeks quotes are:

"I've been no one so many times, I'm not the least bit afraid" Mark Doty.

"If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill.

and this weeks top pick (don't say I didn't warn you)

"I just had my heart crushed, but I can push that aside like it never happened" Ugly Betty.



-Kastoory

Rihanna Rules the School

Pomp Obsessions: Lit up

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but I am obsessed enough with this song to warrant a comeback, and I'm sure Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest will make a lot of top 10 of '09 lists, but still, the video invites a lot of strange interpretation.



And then I saw this, and realized that I can't wait for their a capella album. They really should do one. A capella is so... haught.



-Kastoory

Face OFF???

OMGZ! It's true, Coke zero in a brilliant marketing tool has decided to bring together doppelgangers from all over the world.
What does that mean, say you?
What it means is that you can go through the Coke Zero website, then connect through Facebook (in a do you trust this app way? where you have to ask yourself what Coke Zero is getting out of it, and the answer is probably valuable consumer info and insight, but who knows?) where they then go through all the hundreds of other people who trust the Coca Cola corporation (naive, but sweet) and they show you your Doppelganger.



Now I have seen doppelgangers of most of my friends, but said friends are usually far away and don't get to see the evil (or sometimes good) version of themselves. This allows you to not just stare awe-struck into the face of someone that looks like you, but allows you to strike up a conversation, talking about how you guys look the same.
I haven't actually done this yet, because I am certain that if I met or even gazed at the countenance of my double, the world would end. And it's so not 2012 yet.
But still, the fact that I can do this, scares me. The wonderful power of the internet, and companies with disparate websites that have nothing to do with coca-cola.

-Kastoory

New York State Senate Not Ready For Big Boy Pants

The New York Times reported yesterday that the New York State Senate voted down a bill that would allow gay couples to get married, giving all the adults in the room a clear indication that the 38 senators who voted against it are not yet ready for big boy pants.

The adults in this case are quoted as saying that the 38 senators who voted against it will be allowed to stop wearing diapers just as soon as the idea of two same-sex strangers getting married does not cause them to shit their pants.

Pictured here is Carl Kruger, the only Brooklyn Democrat to vote against the bill. Multiple calls to his offices were not returned for comment by press time, though we have been promised a press release regarding the issue.

In all seriousness, I want to remind everyone what's at stake here: this is not about changing the rules of any church or religious organization, nor is this about a wave of angry leather daddies in assless chaps riding the subway with erect cocks to the statehouse to have unprotected buttsex on the steps of the capital while wiping their shit-muddied semen on every blank marriage certificate they can get their hands on.

This is about the basic family rights currently denied to homosexual couples, some of whom have been in loving, monogamous relationships for decades who have been denied the right to see their partners in emergency rooms, who have been denied the right to have joint adoption of a child (Can you imagine - your partner dies and you have no legal relationship with your child? None?). Whatever your beliefs about marriage as a religious or social institution, when we deny marriage rights to same-sex couples, we are denying them access to very important and life-changing legal protections and rights that every heterosexual has free and open access to. There is no rational justification against the legal status of marriage for homosexuals.

When you deny homosexuals these rights, you are not defending marriage. (If you were really interested in the sanctity of marriage, you would, like this California satirist, ban divorce.) You are being mean. You are denying life-changing rights to strangers for no good reason.

If you vote against gay marriage, you are a mean dick.

Here is a video of gay couples, individuals, and straight allies talking about how much marriage equality means to them, after winning it in Connecticut.

Full disclosure: I shot and cut this video.

Ten O' Clock Classics

Entering senior year of LaGuardia "Fame" high school in post 9/11 New York, Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground were my smoky voiced survival soundtrack. Lou's stark lyrics conjured an alluring boozy bohemian side of the rough streets I was raised in. Five years later, I've drunk my way through countless degrading downtown dramas to emerge not too badly singed in time to meet Lou for Ten O' Clock Classics brilliant benefit.


(Dr. Dan Richman, Dominic Chianese, Actor/Singer & Carrie Waible)


(Fern Jelen, Ben Jelen & Ailyn Perez, World Renowned Opera Singer)


(Yannick Noah performs)


(Ronen Segev, T.O.C. founder, Michelle Suna, Artist)

T.O.C. was founded by Ronen Segen in 2000 in an effort to bring classical music to untraditional venues with celebrity hosts in order to raise funds for the finest young musicians in NYC public schools. Appropriately hosted off Union Square ("Run Run Run"), the evening brought together a slew of charitable stars including Yannick Noah, Ben Jelen, Dominic Chianese and native New Yorker artist Michelle Suna.


(Lou Reed with the T.O.C. kids)


(Lou and his guitar)

I eagerly awaited Lou's arrival, excited to meet someone whose songs I felt reflected my own hurt. When Lou walked in, his assistant immediately demanded a Diet Coke, while Reed hid from photographers. Though I never got to greet the elusive legend, the real rock stars of the night were T.O.C.'s musical prodigies who performed with Ben Yelen to wild applause. Though Lou--and sometimes I--might be over the downtown scene that wore us ragged, it's nice to know that a hopeful young generation is still making music.

-Royal
Photos, Jakes