Brand new Flavor in your...eye!

NY Mag recently did a wonderful piece on Flavor Paper's move from New Orleans to Brooklyn. Here's the back story:

Founded on the Oregon coast by a guy named Ted, this small handscreened wallpaper company flourished in the Age of Aquarius.

Many years later, some young designers seeking striking wallcoverings discovered Ted’s greatness- just days before the designs and equipment were to be destroyed. Knowing what had to be done, these young designers headed west to save Ted’s legacy…

Relocated to the Bywater District of New Orleans, Flavor Paper continued to print using Ted’s traditional printing methods and vacuum table, but with greatly increased accuracy and detail. Contact (them) in (their) new Brooklyn, NY Flavor Lair to see samples of fine handscreened wallpaper designed in Ted’s days or fresh from the next generation of Flavor Paper designers.(source)

And, yeah, that's scratch-n-sniff wall paper above!

2 more Parking Lot Movie days!

The Parking Lot Movie Trailer from The Parking Lot Movie on Vimeo.

The one week run of The Parking Lot Movie ends tomorrow (8/12) - catch it if you can:

Yo La Tengo bass player James McNew used to work there, as have grad students, overeducated philosophers, surly artists, middle-age slackers and more from the fringes of Charlottesville, Virginia. Irreverently but warmly celebrating a brotherhood of eccentric attendants who man a unique two-acre lot from the most ramshackle booth ("like something you might discover in Albania at the border"), THE PARKING LOT MOVIE humorously reveals class warfare within its blacktop microcosm. SXSW 2010's "most feel-good film" (The Wrap) makes its New York premiere with a week-long engagement, August 6 - 12.

Three years in the making, director Meghan Eckman's documentary portrait shows how certain details and themes gain profundity through the daily scrutiny of these parking lot attendants: car culture, capitalism, entitlement, fury and justice, public drunkenness, spiritual awareness, societal frictions, and other existentialist cries from the service sector. If the intersection between the status quo and the quest for freedom is their ultimate challenge, could a slab of asphalt be an emotional way station for The American Dream? As one part-timer laments, "We had it all in a world that had nothing to offer us." (source)

YUM!

Thank you Time Out NY:

Pies ’n’ Thighs, the city’s most eagerly awaited Southern-fried grease trap, has kept Williamsburg in Pavlovian limbo since the start of 2008, when its first incarnation—a drunk-food closet at the back of a bar—was shut down to prep for a more spacious and permanent home. Last month, after endless delays, it finally debuted in a former bodega near the Williamsburg Bridge.

The new version, run by the three chefs behind the original—Carolyn Bane, Erika Geldzahler and Sarah Buck, who met working at Diner—is a full-fledged restaurant with prompt, personable waiters and beer and wine service. Still, the place retains the DIY, seat-of-the-pants spirit of the dive that it sprang from, with food specials scrawled on sheets of paper, chairs and tables that might have been salvaged from a public school, and overhead lights so bright, dining there feels like sitting in detention.

The food, not the venue, is clearly the draw. While the down-and-dirty Southern fare—honest, cheap and often delicious—is certainly in line with Brooklyn’s all-American moment, it’s an audacious departure from the borough’s judiciously sourced, seasonally orthodox, self-righteously ethical ethos.

Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/restaurants-bars/84797/pies-n-thighs-williamsburg-restaurant-review#ixzz0nsfst4ep

ART: Shepard Fairey @ BK Museum 4/25

From Flavorpill:

The Brooklyn Museum says:

One of the most influential street artists of our time, Shepard Fairey will discuss his career and work with Associate Curator of Exhibitions Sharon Matt Atkins on Sunday, April 25 at 3 p.m. at the Brooklyn Museum. A book signing of Supply and Demand and Obey: E Pluribus Venom will follow the talk.

The world's best-known street artist, the controversial and prolific Shepard Fairey, is in town for a major solo exhibition at Deitch Projects (in fact, the last exhibition Deitch has planned in his Wooster Street space, given his imminent departure for LA and his new life in the private sector). It's also the 20th anniversary, as impossible as that seems, of the publication of his seminal book Supply and Demand. This afternoon, he stops by the Brooklyn Museum for a book-signing and farther-reaching conversation on his life and career as an artist, icon, and lightning-rod. - Shana Nys Dambrot

Kentucky gets lucky in NYC

Well it seems to be a Kentucky themed week around good old NYC. First off, former beauty queen and KY native Miss Diane has taken over for Charlie Gibson on ABC World News Tonight.
Secondly, I ran across these amazing looking caramel wrapped marshmallows on the Williams- Sonoma website. They remind me of similar goodie that I've only seen at See's Candy in Los Angeles. "Dubbed 'Modjeskas,' these soft caramel confections were named in honor of a beautiful Polish actress by a fervent admirer. They're produced by a family-owned candy company in Kentucky using the recipe that Great-Grandfather Bauer developed in 1889. The handmade marshmallows, enrobed with luscious caramel, still elicit rapturous." Santa, if you're watching...
And last but not least, The Bell House in BKLYN is kicking off 2010 with THE KENTUCKY COLONEL'S WINTER FOLLIES & EARLY BIRD DERBY DAY PARTY :

"Come join us for a Kentucky Derby themed masterpiece starring The Girls from Wasabassco Burlesque & The Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. and Chris McDaniel with his thrilling display of bullwhip & rope tricks. It's a Hee Haw inspired night celebrating everything southern and horsey. With another 119 days until The Kentucky Derby, we just couldn't wait to get the party started. This is a good time to make sure your hats and seersucker suits still fit. Things to get you in the spirit: Benedictine Sandwich appetizers, Mint Juleps (1 free for the first 100 peeps), Hat Contest, Race Track Game."

January 2 @ 9PM. Get your $10 tix here.

And speaking of New Orleans...

GP tickets are sold out BUT there are some limited view and benefactor seats still left. Call BAM for more info @ 718.636.4100

A Streetcar Named Desire

Nov 27—Dec 20* @ BAM

"...how often do you get to watch an actress of such virtuosity pulling out every stop of her instrument and then some?" —The New York Times on Cate Blanchett

Tennessee Williams has a way with his women. Both sympathetic and merciless, he cuts to their core, revealing their longing, vulnerability, and pride. His most poignant creation—and the dream role of every leading actress—may be the narcissistic and deeply troubled Blanche DuBois of A Streetcar Named Desire.

An aging Southern beauty, Blanche is all artifice, pomposity, and need, traits that Cate Blanchett, a transcendent performer (who made her New York stage debut at BAM in 2006 as an unforgettable Hedda Gabler), conveys with the most delicate balance of hysteria and pathos. Playing off of Joel Edgerton as the remorseless monster Stanley, and Robin McLeavy, as her conflicted sister Stella, Blanchett and the outstanding ensemble cast of the Sydney Theatre Company bring new life to this celebrated work.

Liv Ullmann—whose own soul-baring performances in the films of Ingmar Bergman defined an era—directs, granting Williams' fraught characters a full spectrum of emotions while witnessing the old South's losing battle against a coarse modern world.

*Nov 27 & 28, Dec 1, 2, 4, 5, 8—12, 15—19 at 7:30pm
Nov 28, Dec 2, 5, 9, 12, 16, & 19 at 2pm
Nov 29, Dec 6, 13, 20 at 3pm
Dec 3 at 8pm (Belle Rêve Gala)

Source - BAM website

SCREEN: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans @ BAM

Tues, Nov 24—Wed, Nov 25 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm
Thu, Nov 26 at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm

"Fueled by Nicolas Cage’s performance—which requires adjectives as yet uncoined, typed with both the caps-lock key and the italics button engaged—Mr. Herzog’s film is a pulpy, glorious mess. Its maniacal unpredictability is such a blast that it reminds you just how tidy and dull most crime thrillers are these days."—The New York Times

In Werner Herzog’s new film Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans, Nicolas Cage plays a rogue detective who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs—while playing fast and loose with the law. He wields his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he becomes a high-functioning addict who is a deeply intuitive, fearless detective reigning over the beautiful ruins of New Orleans with authority and abandon. Complicating his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves (played by Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of filmmaking: equally sad and manically humorous.

Synopsis courtesy of Apparition.

Source - BAM website

SOUNDS: EyeHateGod in BKLYN tonight

They've been called doomcore, sludge and stoner rock, survived line-up shuffles, label hassles and a short-lived split. And after more than a decade of creating some of the most corrosive, vile music known to man, EyeHateGod still hasn't lost the piss and vinegar that fueled them back in 1988. (source)

Jimmy Bower & co. play tonight @ Club Europa in Brooklyn.

Rosanne Cash @ St. Ann's Warehouse

Photo: Annie Leibowitz

“If my father had been a martial arts master, he might have passed a martial arts ‘secret’ on to me, his oldest child. If he had been a surgeon, he might have taken me into his operating room and pointed out the arteries and organs. If he were a robber baron, he might have surveyed his empire and said, ‘Honey, some day this will all be yours!’ But he was a musician and a songwriter, and he gave me The List.” Rosanne Cash

St. Ann's Warehouse presents the World Premiere concert of ROSANNE CASH The List, the first album culled from a list of “100 Essential Country Songs” that Johnny Cash created for his daughter when she was 18. Alarmed that Rosanne lacked a deep understanding of country music, Johnny gave her the list and insisted she learn them all. Filtered through her own unique, sophisticated perspective, Rosanne covers songs from The List with her own stylish interpretations, paving their way to a permanent place in the American Songbook. Produced and arranged by Grammy-Award winner John Leventhal, The List includes masterpieces by The Carter Family, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Bob Dylan and more. (source)

These concerts are not until October 9 & 10 but tix are on sale now until 9/2 for St. Ann's members and then open up to the general public.

EAT: 3rd Ward Bluegrass BBQ 8/23 @ 4PM

August 23, 4 to 9 p, FREE Admission, Cheap Eats & Drinks

Join 3rd Ward for an afternoon of Bluegrass music and BBQ! Local Bluegrass bands will perform between 4 and 7 p and then at 8 p Bluegrass Musicians are invited to grab their banjos, mandolins and acoustic guitars for an open session of parking-lot pickin' in the yard.

Open to everyone, just throw on your country clothes and come out for this buckdancing, bluesy, Brooklyn BBQ. RSVP events@3rdward.com

3rd Ward is a member-based design center for creative professionals in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They are committed to providing resources, opportunities and a dynamic-creative network to our members and the community at large. Its 20,000 sq. ft. space houses four gorgeous photo studios, a professional wood & metal shop, a fully loaded digital media lab, shared & private office space and a large interdisciplinary art education program. Throughout the year they also offer exciting events and opportunities for artists. (source)

So nice, they had to do it twice!

In case you missed them last night, you can catch NOLA's Rebirth Brass Band today (7/9) at noon for a free concert as part of BAM's Rhythm & Blues Festival at MetroTech.

BAM says: One of the indispensable staples in the New Orleans music scene, Rebirth Brass Band is known for their vintage, tuba-driven style that incorporates funk, soul, jazz and hip-hop into a classic march-music repertoire. Formed in 1983, the band has gone from marching the streets of the French Quarter to playing sold-out shows around the world. Committed to maintaining the traditional “second line” style, Rebirth grants their heavy funk and irresistible groove a relevance that resonates with old-school fans and first-time listeners alike.

SOUNDS: Patterson Hood in NYC 6/23 & 24

Patterson Hood will release Murdering Oscar (and other love songs) today on Ruth St. Records. The second solo record from the leader of the Drive-By Truckers has been 15 years in the making. The album was produced by Hood and long-time DBT producer David Barbe (Sugar). Most of his DBT band mates join him on the album as well as Don Chambers, Will Johnson and Scott Danbom from Centro-matic/South San Gabriel. This is also the first time Hood’s father David Hood, famed Muscle Shoals bass player, joins him on a record.

The album was recorded at Chase Park Transduction Studios in Athens, GA and will also be released on 180 gram vinyl. The vinyl release will include three exclusive bonus tracks. An a cappella version of “Range War” will also be available exclusively with iTunes. “Pollyanna” and “Pride of the Yankees” are available to preview on his Myspace page.

Hood and the Screwtopians will start the first leg of their tour in Nashville and end with a headlining slot at AthFest in Hood’s hometown of Athens, GA. Joining Hood on tour will be Brad Morgan (drums), John Neff (guitar/steel), Scott Danbom (keys/fiddle), Will Johnson (guitar) and David Barbe (bass), who has not toured since his days with Sugar. Will Johnson will open the shows. (source)

Patterson Hood plays the Music Hall of Williamsburg in BK tonight, and Bowery Ballroom tomorrow.

EAT: The Brooklyn Star

A recent nod from Daily Candy:

EAT
The Brooklyn Star
What: Fried green tomatoes, Dr. Pepper ribs, fried chicken wings, dumplings, biscuits, and other divine artery-clogging delights.
Why: This from a man who used to make your Momofuku dreams come true.
When: Daily, 5:30-11 p.m.
Where: 33 Havemeyer St., b/t N. 7th & N. 8th Sts., Williamsburg (718-599-9899).

STAGE: The High Priestess of Dark Alley

(image credit)

"Set in present-day New Orleans, THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF DARK ALLEY is the story of three creole women, Celeste Thibodaux and her two grown daughters, Claire and Janee Charbonet. Trapped by the conventions of intra-racial divisions within the African-American community, the sisters are pitted against their mother regarding issues of color, class, sexuality and generational differences." (source)

Playing now thru June 28 @ Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn.

BOOK: The Invisible Empire

NOTE: I debated whether or not to include this book but wow! seriously? Are these things still going on? Will the folks in this book seek forgiveness at the end of their lives like former Klansman Elwin Wilson? Anyway, here goes:

“We believe in our race—in the fellowship of our race and the preservation of our race. We are the only people today that are actually participating in the preservation of the white race around the world. If we don’t condemn the threats against our race, it will no longer exist…That’s basically why we feel the way we do. We also believe that no race will live up to it’s potential if it’s mixed with another race, it only dilutes as it does with any situation in the world”.
-Dale Fox, Imperial Wizard of the Brotherhood of the Klans

Established in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan still remains one of America’s most secretive organizations. New York photojournalist Anthony Karen first transcended that secrecy several years ago when he got the opportunity to photograph a KKK cross-lighting ceremony; since then, he has been documenting Klan organizations throughout the country. Those photographs are compiled to form an absorbing document of one of the most notorious groups in history in The Invisible Empire: Ku Klux Klan.

Taken with unrestricted access, Karen’s images bring us deep inside America’s most private white nationalist organizations. Beginning with a brief introduction into the history of the Klan, the book provides detailed visual accounts of modern-day Klan life, including candid shots of rallies, individual portraits of Klansmen and women, as well as a look at the naturalization process for new members. Presented in intimate profiles are a functioning Klan ministry, a group that has merged National Socialism with Klan ideologies, and a 58-year-old seamstress who makes custom Klan robes, among others. Accompanied by quotations from the late Dale Fox, Imperial Wizard of The Brotherhood of the Klans, The Invisible Empire offers an unprecedented glimpse into the shadowy society and its mysterious inner workings.

Anthony Karen is a photojournalist based in New York. His passion for photography began in Haiti, where he documented the various Vodou rituals and pilgrimages throughout the country before embarking on the Ku Klux Klan project. Karen served in the U.S. Marine Corps and worked for many years in the personal protection industry. He has traveled extensively worldwide and has worked with many humanitarian groups, including the Humane Society of the United States. He currently freelances for World Picture News.

The Invisible Empire is out on PowerHouse books today (4/15)

SCREEN: Goodbye Solo @ BAM BKLYN this weekend

Q&As @ BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn
Friday, 4/10 - Cinematographer Michael Simmonds
Saturday, 4/11 - Actor Souléymane Sy Savané

On the lonely roads of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, two men forge an improbable friendship that will change both of their lives forever. Solo is a Senegalese cab driver working to provide a better life for his young family. William is a tough Southern good ol‘ boy with a lifetime of regrets. One man‘s American dream is just beginning, while the other‘s is quickly winding down. But despite their differences, both men soon realize they need each other more than either is willing to admit. Through this unlikely but unforgettable friendship, GOODBYE SOLO deftly explores the passing of a generation as well as the rapidly changing face of America.
(synopsis and map courtesy of film site)


View The GOODBYE SOLO guide to Winston-Salem in a larger map

Goodbye Solo is in theaters now.

EAT: Texas Tapas Times Two and some BBQ

Two new Texas themed restaurants have hit NYC. Marfa (pictured above) is, according to Thrillist, "the brainchild of an E.Vil townie who convinced the Lucky Cheng's crew to replace Waikikki Wally's with a scuffed-wall, cellar-esque barstraunt named for a West Texas artist colony...Texas grub includes fried catfish w/ cole slaw and beans, dry rub BBQ, mac & cheese, and their own Marfa Chili, so meaty, other chilis will jealously whine 'Marfa Marfa Marfa.'"

And in Brooklyn, Whiskey Sunday, of which the Village Voice wrote: "'A new barbecue spot in the land of rotis,' and that pretty much sums it up. Prospect-Lefferts Gardens is a paradise of West Indian and Caribbean food, and that's where prolific Brooklyn restaurateur Jim Mamary has recently opened a non-traditional but tasty barbecue spot. It was called Billy Sunday's, in a tongue-in-cheek ode to a famous prohibitionist, but apparently Billy was known for not only hating booze and being an evangelist, but also for being a rabid racist, soooo... that name was soon nixed in favor of Whiskey Sunday."

SOUNDS: Johnny Cash Bash @ Southpaw 2/28

Well, it's sold-out but maybe you can figure a way into Brooklyn Country's bash in honor of Johnny Cash's 77th Birthday - tomorrow night (2/28) @ Southpaw in Brooklyn....featuring an all night tribute to Johnny Cash including a full rendition of "JC @ San Quentin!"

STAGE: Chuck. Chuck.Chuck. in Bklyn 2/26 - 28

Chuck.Chuck.Chuck. a new work by Immediate Medium

Based on Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Chuck.Chuck.Chuck. follows the family members of Addie Bundren as they leave their home to fulfill her dying wish - to be returned to her birthplace for burial. Through text, video, live music and dance, the project examines subterranean connections that exist within families and among communities. Patterns emerge from the crap shoot of history and congeal as the Bundrens go about the often terrible business of living.

The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or town.

all shows start at 8:30pm @ the COLLAPSABLE HOLE
146 Metropolitan Ave. at Berry, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L train to Bedford, G train to Metropolitan.
[Click for Map]

$15 door
$12 advance online purchase
www.theatermania.com
or call 212-352-3101

Immediate Medium: mission

Immediate Medium, Inc. (IM) is a non-profit performance collaborative founded in 2002 and dedicated to building a community of artists through the creation of works of art utilizing live performance and multimedia. We seek to challenge formal distinctions between performance, dance, film, sculpture and architecture in order to create new works of experiential art that engage and provoke creators and audience alike.

history

Members of the company came together at Yale while studying and exploring mostly traditional approaches to theatre, sculpture, film, photography and dance. After moving to New york, company members began to work across media and more collaboratively, not elevating one artistic medium above another.

STAGE: The Protestants in Bklyn thru 2/14/09

Now at The Brick Theater in BKLYN: When Scottie, the eldest, returns home to Virginia from his NYC sojourn for the marriage/departure of his chronically negligent mother, he discovers his biologically-ruined brother wilting, his emotionally-untethered brother firing, and his baby ‘brother’ Tippy becoming a woman and the family’s final hope. Tippy’s tough-as-nails best-bud Ruby, a Nurse fallen from the pages of Chekhov, and Scottie’s cosmopolitan girlfriend Virginia round out this frenetic yet heart-blooming world.

Told in evocative, free-wheeling scenes, The Protestants penetrates the rural, central Virginian landscape with characters of big desire, personality, and problem—one part The Royal Tenenbaums, one part Faulkner. It delivers a South where pain and humor intertwine, with both aiming for the last laugh; where the need and the notion of God lurks throughout to order and illuminate things forgiven, things forsaken.

The Old Kent Road Theater (OKRT) is proud to return to The Brick, site of their festival hits The Children of Truffaut (Pretentious Festival) and Death at Film Forum (The Film Festival: A Theater Festival). The OKRT has also produced at the New York International Fringe Festival, Midtown International Theatre Festival, and the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator Program. Its plays have been noted for their ‘vibrant characters…heartfelt passion, and spirited volleys of non sequiturs’ (Village Voice) and described as ‘pure inspiration’ (nytheatre.com) and ‘downtown theatre at its best’ (New York Cool.com).

Eric Bland, writer/director, received his MA in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His play Death at Film Forum will be published in the NYTE anthology, Plays and Playwrights 2009.