Basement & Treble
Inside New York's newest underground playground
In a town full of skyscrapers, it’s often what’s happening beneath the sidewalk that ends up being the most exciting. Hidden spaces—think SubMercer, the basement of La Esquina or the late, lamented Undochine—are black gold in New York's over-saturated nightlife scene. A hard-to-find, little-known location with the right music and crowd can become an overnight sensation, and if a group of peop...
Pride & Precious
You can thank media titans Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry for much of the hype surrounding Lee Daniels’ film Precious. ARMOND WHITE calls it the ‘Con Job of the Year.’
SHAME ON TYLER PERRY and Oprah Winfrey for signing on as air-quote executive producers of Precious. After this post-hip-hop freak show wowed Sundance last January, it now slouches toward Oscar ratification thanks to its powerful friends.Winfrey and Perry had no hand in the actual production of Precious, yet the movie must have touched some sore spot in their demagogue psyches. They’ve piggybacked their reps as ...
Flavor of the Week: On a Tear
JUSTIN RICHARDS and the life (and love) lessons of a Brooklyn jailhouse
THE AIR IN the cell was warm with evaporated piss and sweat, so eventually I took off the leather jacket I’d been wearing. Someone sitting on the bench—a young, coffee-colored guy with fat red lips tattooed on his neck—jabbed the guy beside him and pointed at me.Well, it’s about time, I thought.
Gut Instinct: Down in the Dumps
Dumpling fanatic JOSH BERNSTEIN makes the dubious decision to eat his weight in pot stickers
YOU CAN CHUCK them in your mouth or put them in water, but if anyone vomits,” the cute Chinese event coordinator chirped, pointing to trashcans lined with I HEART NEW YORK bags, “they’re disqualified. Anyone have any questions?” Just one: Why did I enter Chef One’s sixth annual dumpling-eating contest? Answer: A little bit of hubris, a lot of jet lag and, naturally, no common sense.
The Future of the Past
Performa 09 celebrates Futurism with a staggering lineup of artists
THIS CRAMPED CHELSEA office could be mistaken for a telemarketing operation, except for the small bookshelf lined with titles like Delirious New York and Women Artists of Italian Futurism.
The Sunny Side of Things
Formerly fussy Charles is surprisingly enjoyable
WHEN I FIRST heard about this Charles character, he sounded like a dick. There was plenty of hullabaloo about him having no phone number, the sign hanging outside advertising the restaurant that used to live in his space and all sorts of nonsense that made me figure if someone was going to work so hard to keep me from seeing him, perhaps I shouldn’t. And so for a while I didn’t.
