Just a reminder that this Saturday and Sunday is AGAST. Be there or be un-Gowanusy.
[seeing spots]
For some great coverage of the Fossella-Harrison contest in New York’s 13th District, check out Blue Spot, a Democratic blog covering New York politics. You can even watch a complete Harrison-Fossella debate, if you’re feeling masochistic.
[harrison for congress via kos]
Steve Harrison, Democrat for Congress, has a blog up at Daily Kos. Let’s hope it brings in some campaign contributions and generates some attention where it’s needed.
And the race must be getting competitive, because incumbent Republican Vito Fossella has agreed to not one but four separate debates. Considering that his main tactic so far has been to avoid discussing his own record and try to label Harrison as some kind of nut (he’s not), the debates are a sign that Fossella’s people are getting nervous.
These aren’t national debates, of course, but local events, meant to sway local voters. That means Harrison needs supporters to pack the seats. If you can make it to any of the debates, I’m sure it’d mean a lot to Steve and his campaign. The dates and locations are on Steve’s homepage.
Nice work, Steve!
[bad company]
Here’s Representative Vito Fossella of Staten Island at a photo op with everyone’s favorite disgraced Congressman, Mark Foley, who’s in trouble for coming on to underage male Congressional pages.
The bigger story, of course, is that the Republican leadership knew for months and months about Foley’s bad behavior and covered it up. Apparently heterosexual blowjobs between consenting adults are impeachable, but attempted homosexual pedophilia is something the public doesn’t need to know about.
And did Vito know about Foley’s shenanigans? Does it even matter? These are his friends, this is the moral environment in which they operate. This is why I’m working for Steve Harrison’s campaign for Congress: because the current Congress is repugnant.
[kim’s video debut]
Any New York City film buff is familiar with Kim’s Video. Especially in the days before Netflix and GreenCine, Kim’s was the place to go for your obscure cinema needs.
The video chain’s founder, Korean-born Yongman Kim, dropped out of an NYU Film School class that included Jim Jarmusch and Lees Ang and Spike. He has now at last gotten around to making his own film debut as director of 1/3, a psychological thriller set in the East Village and involving both a Buddhist monk and the snorting of cocaine from off someone’s ass.
The film opens in New York City on Friday, October 6, at City
Cinemas Village East.
[dumbo fest]
While we’re on the subject of art happenings, DKNY reminded me that there is another festival coming up: the 10th Annual Art Under the Bridge Festival, put on by the DUMBO Arts Center, will be taking place on the weekend of October 13-15. (And for all you sticklers, yes, I do believe that Friday night is technically part of the weekend.)
Like AGAST, the DUMBO Festival has been thoroughly worthwhile in years past, both as an exhibition of much interesting art and as an opportunity to peek inside parts of New York you don’t usually get to see. New York is a great walking city, and there are few greater ways to enjoy this town than to spend a crisp autumn day strolling from gallery to gallery in a warehousey neighborhood, eating candy corn and M&Ms that starving artists bought for you.
Try it. You won’t be disappointed!
[agast again]
It’s comin’ round again: the Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour, aka AGAST, which I documented in detail last year (1, 2). I don’t know whether I’ll work so hard again this year, but I do intend to make the rounds. As always, I highly recommend this opportunity to see a lot of very good art and explore some of the homes and warehouse spaces scattered around the Gowanus Canal area. (Via 423 Smith.)
[tasty treats]
Today in Gothamist, 32nd Street mainstay Mandoo Bar gets a writeup from Youngna Park, who also profiled one of the finer Carroll Gardens cuisineries, Chestnut. The reviews are written in a way that suggests English is not Ms. Park’s first language, but hey, pretty pictures.
[fung wah funk]
Chinatown Bus by Project Jenny, Project Jan (EP) [via Gothamist]
China Girl (YouTube) by David Bowie (Let’s Dance)
Feng Shui by Gnarls Barkley (St. Elsewhere) [via undomondo]
Fung Wah, the original Chinatown bus company, may have had some trouble lately, but it’s still the cheapest way to move around the Northeast Corridor — with tolls and gas costing what they do, even driving your own car is more expensive if you’re going solo — and it still carries the frisson of the exotic and forbidden. Plus you don’t have to go to Port Authority, a horrible place that abuts another horrible place. Here’s hoping that the era of cheap travel is merely down but not out.
So, the music. Project Jenny, Project Jan is a Brooklyn duo that offers helpful advice for Fung Wah travelers. David Bowie is some kind of space freak who offers an unhelpful narrative about his little China Girl. And Gnarls Barkley is an enormously hyped duo in goofy costumes who offer what appears to be a paean to the principles of feng shui, the Chinese art of arranging space. (I’m guessing the Lo and the Mouse would not approve of the spacial relations pictured above.)
Bonus by Request: Crazy by Gnarls Barkley (St. Elsewhere) [via clever titles are so last summer]
[primaries]
So the results are in, and beyond the obvious and expected wins by Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, the biggest news is Andrew Cuomo’s surprisingly big win over Mark Green in the primary for state attorney general.
In our Congressional district primary in Brooklyn, which essentially decides who will hold the seat (a Republican win here is as likely as a Democratic sweep of all public offices in Provo, Utah), City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke narrowly won the field against three opponents. It was a contentious race because the 11th District was created as a result of the Voting Rights Act and has been held by African-Americans ever since, but one of the strongest candidates was second-place finisher David Yassky, a white city council member.
The seat came open this year because Representative Major Owens is retiring. He tried to give his son, Chris Owens, the keys to the fief, but Chris never had much to offer except his crown-prince status and a tendency toward vicious campaigning. State Senator Carl Andrews was the other candidate, but he was hurt by his ties to Clarence Norman, the former Democratic Leader in Brooklyn who was convicted last year on corruption charges.
I didn’t like any of the candidates, but I held my nose and voted for Yassky, who wants the Atlantic Yards project to be reduced in size (Clarke supports the project, the others are against), who has a relatively distinguished record on the city council, who didn’t take over his mother’s seat on said council (Clarke replaced her mom, Una Clarke), and who didn’t forget to graduate from Oberlin. Nevertheless, I think Clarke is a reasonable choice and will hopefully do a decent job in Washington.
In our local state senate primary, Ken Diamondstone’s expensive campaign failed to unseat Albany lifer Martin Connor.