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Midsummer Night’s Dream Coming to an End in Central Park

globus cover

The Summer of Love began with a tear-jerker tragedy of Romeo and his Juliet, and is about to finish up with an uproarious comedy of bewitchment and transformations, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Time is running out for you to partake of this gem. Sunday, September 9th is the last day Dream will be performed at Central Park for everyone who was there since about 7am, waiting faithfully for the free tickets.

Although I have seen Shakespeare in the Park performed with the sum total of a ladder and many fold-out chairs for props, the scenery director decided to take it up a notch for Dream. In the center of the stage stood a monolith of a tree with thick foliage and plenty of hardy branches upon which to lounge, make sweet love to an “ass” and perform acrobatics in general.

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2007
09/07
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Theater
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Mythic, Perhaps, But Epic It Is Not

Mythology is a rich topic and there is much writing on the subject. At the American Museum of Natural History Mythic Creatures exhibit you will see a number of century-old books behind glass as well as a menagerie of quotes and quirky historical facts highlighted on information posts to make the scarcity of everything else less obvious.

But then, what can possibly be presented as proof of creatures classified as mythic? For each of the creatures separated into those of the deep, the earth, the air and power there are figurines and paintings as well as ancient (and no so ancient) texts and a video of available research such as the genetics laboratory where supposed Yeti hair is found, again and again, to just be matted horse hair. Continue reading →

2007
09/03
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CATEGORY
Exhibitions
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Losing My Wacken Virginity (Part 1 of 2)

Aerial of Wacken back in 2004, when it was still more manageable. Click here for previous aerials.

Few things hold more promise than huge festivals full of strangers and booze. Wacken Open Air brings all these possibilities to life. It is, unquestionably, the Metal Mecca of the world, but the music itself is only the starting point of a romantic lifestyle requiring metal encrusted leather, lots of beer and burping and pissing, and of course, rolling around in filth, falling into mud pits and freezing at night. It’s about being heroes, like in the bygone times, when men were quaffing Vikings and women were scantily dressed maidens. Like in those long ago times, it is also a time of pain.

Lets begin with the saga of Brett. He is a slight man of 22 who has been holding down a clerical position by day and rocking out to the likes of Nile and Samael at all other available hours. His decision to go to W:O:A 2007 was a little belated and just as he made up his mind, http://www.wacken.com pronounced the festival sold out. In lieu of letting the dream die he turned to E-Bay.

E-bay supplied him with a ticket, for an exorbitant sum of over six hundred American dollars, which he paid up. The ticket could only be shipped to England, but Brett thankfully had some friends who were also going to Wacken situated in the U.K. With the precious ticket safely in the hands of one of these friends, Brett, armed with a phone number, got on the plane. Continue reading →

2007
08/28
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Music
Travel
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An Evening of Metal with Skinless, Chthonic and Nile

 

Dallas Toler-Wade of Nile

Dallas Toler-Wade looking like a demon

Yet again, I am at B.B. King’s. It is August 21th and what the bands have in common tonight is their subject matter: mythology. OK, so the Halloween props scattered on the stage for Skinless and their mostly humorous lyrics maybe have nothing to do with it, but Chthonic and Nile are all about mythology, Taiwanese and Egyptian, respectively. They were also all part of the line up for Ozzfest 2007.

Skinless

Skinless is a local band and a B.B. King’s regular from Albany, NY. Their sound is predominantly generic death metal; fast riffs, guttural growls and high-pitched shrieks making lyrics indiscernible. The music drives up the ante and Jason Keyser (vocals) leaps off the stage. Swallowed up by the fans, he resurfaced, and after reaching the crowd barricade used it to leap into the crowd again. For Keyser they moshed like mad, even attempting a front-to-back wall-of-death. Continue reading →

2007
08/24
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Music
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Don’t Block the Cock; Guide the Cock. See “Superbad.”

superbad [psterThis is one of those movies based on drunken teenage antics to speed-dialgue that leave me ashamed of my own inability to put together dick jokes.

“You don’t want college girls to think you suck dick at fucking pussy” do you? Well, here is a tutorial then. “Superbad”, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is about two teenagers named Seth (Jonah HIll) and Evan (Michael Cera), about to graduate High School and willing to give up a testicle to get accepted and get laid before the finale. Their last chance comes when one of the girls they are after invites them to a party she is throwing at her house and they seal their fates by offering to bring booze via fake ID of third-wheeling friend Fogell played brilliantly by debuting Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Although this played out story is what drives the plot, the movie is actually about the deep friendship between Seth and Evan and how that is endangered by the fact that they will be going to different colleges. And it is very much about about hormones–male hormones. It is also about slightly crooked cops come father figures out for a joy-ride with booze and guns. There is even a little taste of what the future may hold as the guys end up crashing a house party where the guests are balding and getting brain dead with aspirations no higher than seeing a fight break out. Finally, the movie is specifically about dick, because Seth just can’t let his go. Continue reading →

2007
08/21
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Movies
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How PRK Made the Footballs in My Eyes All Round and Stuff

Just as it became chic to wear large glasses with plastic frames that dominate your face, I decided to go through with laser eye surgery. That’s elective laser surgery. On my eyes. It didn’t really sink in until the doctor was telling me to look at the blinking red light as intently as if I was following it down a winding road at 90 miles per hour.

I really didn’t dwell on what was going to happen to me. I went in for an eval, pretty sure there was nothing modern medicine could do for my high prescription, high astigmatism and thin corneas. This was the case four years ago. LASEK still could do nothing for the likes of me, but, apparently, PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy) no longer causes shadowy phantoms to resurface over once corrected vision. So I went under the laser the next day. Continue reading →

2007
08/21
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Random
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Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium

You buy your ticket underneath the hanging skeleton of Super-Croc who “didn’t just live at the same time as the dinosaurs, he ate them!” The body of the monstrosity extends over the entrance and you walk into the main hall of Ripley’s Believe it Or Not Odditorium.

The gaudiness of the marquee incited in me the feeling that the place will be a rip-off. Its incredibly centralized, tourist-trap location —Times Square —did not help lessen my dread. I expected one large hall and maybe one or two more rooms after following the staircase. Instead, I spent hours looking through room after room after room of the collection.

If you are a fan of the show, then the odditorium hardly holds surprises. Nonetheless, it is a different experience —looking at six-legged calf skeleton on TV versus seeing it well-lit and rotating in front of you. If you haven’t seen too many (or any) episodes, then the appeal is like that of any sideshow. In any case, the episodes are played for your benefit in various rooms, including a small theater dedicated specifically to that purpose and placed at a point when all you really want to do is sit down anyway. Continue reading →

2007
08/15
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Exhibitions
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