City - Friday, November 20, 2009 17:03 - 0 Comments
NYU Student to Perform at the New Museum
Campus spitfire and famously proud Jew Mallory Blair stars alongside cultural icons like porn star (dubbed “actress” in the event’s description) Sasha Grey in the reading of Case, an 80s “cyberpunk” novel by Brody Condon.
If this sounds like something you’d care to see, then head over to the New Museum anytime between noon and 6pm this Sunday. Tickets cost twelve dollars. Act now; your next chance to see it will be “at a small outdoor community theater in rural Missouri in summer 2010.” I don’t know how ironic that’s supposed to be.
Entertainment - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 12:02 - 1 Comment
Britney Spears Comes Clean With America
Editor’s note: It is with my deepest sincerity that I apologize to you, dear reader, as well as the entire NYU Local community, and more importantly, Ms. Spears herself. Yesterday was not only the pop star’s album release for Circus, but it was also her birthday—a fact that went completely ignored on our humble site. Happy belated, Brit Brit.
In an effort to atone, today will hereby be known as Britney Spears Day. Cheetos for everyone. Justin Spees is up first with his b-day wishes. Josh Becker will follow later this afternoon.
As my friend Tuan pointed out, the new Britney Spears single “If You Seek Amy” is a phonetic approach to sidestepping the FCC. It works though, it really does; if you say “If you seek Amy” really fast it kind of sounds like “F-U-C-K me,” which makes a lot more sense in context than all the boys wanting to be modifications of the possibility that “you”—me?—wants to find Amy.
Despite the fact that her continued relevance to popular music further delays my boyhood dreams of seeing her naked, I’m pleased about this. Continue…
Entertainment - Wednesday, November 26, 2008 10:21 - 2 Comments
Kanye West Makes Music For Himself on “808s and Heartbreak”
It’s not like Kanye West was ever really at home in hip hop. Rappers tacked him on as a producer—that’s the guy that stands on the other side of the glass—and he tempered his emcee dreams with a troupe of more accomplished artists. His own vocal contribution to his first two albums was a product of the distance he felt from his peers—he didn’t have the cred to be a G, let alone the stylings, so he approached hip hop talking points like a well-meaning fan who failed to be oblivious to their flaws. That made him funny. But he struggled with his chosen lifestyle’s willful disobedience towards the Christian morality he credited with saving his life. That made him interesting, too.
Late Registration was a great work by a genius. 808s and Heartbreak is genius work by an artist whose major gift is the drive afforded by his pop fanaticism (and the beats, I know). Continue…
Entertainment, Featured - Monday, November 10, 2008 8:32 - 4 Comments
The Miseducation of Katy Perry
“Do you see, do you see, do you see how you hurt me baby, so I hurt you too, then we both get so blue.” – Joni Mitchell, “All I Want”
“You walk around like you’re oh so debonair/ You pull ‘em down and there’s really nothing there/ I wish you would just be real with me” – Katy Perry, “Ur So Gay”
I’m not sure we knew what to make of Katy Perry.
She’d kissed a girl over the summer and liked it. What were we suppose to make of that? Lindsay Lohan was purportedly kissing girls as well, so maybe this was something cultural, but Katy was really on about the inebriating freedom of just-a-little-deviance. The gay community was already skeptical over a song entitled “Ur So Gay,” which had her responding to the difficulties inherent in a hipster-chic boyfriend. She claimed it wasn’t about a real person, and to dispel allegations of homophobia, explained that by gay, she meant homosexual. Oh. The rest of us were just confused about what “you’re so gay and you don’t like boys” meant. It sounded militant. There was something weird about this pop star. Continue…
Entertainment - Monday, October 20, 2008 12:00 - 4 Comments
The Last Sarah Palin Video You’ll Ever Need To See (Hopefully)
This one’s for Ned.
Entertainment - Friday, October 17, 2008 13:39 - 4 Comments
Brandon Flowers Continues to Rock Everyone’s Shit
“Human,” the new single from The Killers, raises some deep metaphysical questions that, as a rock journalist, I am tepid about approaching. Like, can music elevate the human spirit? Are there moments where we transcend the boundaries of human form? Have we lost something fundamental with the modernization of society? Can music bring it back?
These in turn lead to even deeper philosophical inquiry: Is Brandon Flowers remotely talented? Does his songwriting process not consist of getting drunk and singing on the spot lyrics to girls he wants to fuck? What has happened to his beard? If you cut him, does he not bleed? Continue…
Entertainment - Thursday, October 16, 2008 12:32 - 0 Comments
Thom Yorke Cares About Iceland Despite Being from England
Not like anybody doesn’t care about Iceland. I just quit the “For Every 5,000 People That Join This Group, I Will Donate a Dollar to Darfur” Facebook group, so at the moment I’m feeling charitable. Almost charitable enough to buy Bjork and Thom Yorke’s new protest single about global warming or some shit when they release it on iTunes next week. Continue…
Entertainment - Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:02 - 0 Comments
An Attempt To Analyze Last Night’s Grudge Match While Trying Not to Be Just Another NYU Obama-phyte
In 2005, Rob McKittrick wrote and directed Waiting. Dane Cook was getting popular then, but McKittrick still had a remote sense of shame, so he cast Ryan Reynolds as the lead and gave Dane the role of the unhinged lead chef. A year later an even bigger tool directed Employee of the Month, and cast Dane Cook as the lead. “Finally,” Dane said, “I can show everyone what I’m made of.”
The reason I bring this up is because the Republican Party over the past eight years has acted a lot like Dane Cook’s manager. In 2000, they passed on John McCain for George W. Bush, a born again Christian who provided them with plenty of white rapping and male nudity, but not really anything resembling a good presidency. And now, primarily because they’ve run out of ideas, they’ve decided to give McCain his own shot at the lead role. If you’re like me, this is the easiest decision you’ve ever made, but I should probably mention that Employee of the Month was actually relatively successful. Continue…
Entertainment - Wednesday, October 15, 2008 6:12 - 0 Comments
Fatties vs. Pretties in “Bodies of Lies”
I caught Body of Lies over the weekend, but I also got mugged outside the movie theater, so the only things I took away from it were that surveillance technology is pretty sexy and that Leo is kind of a douchebag. Try to remember that when De Line Pictures is listening to you talk about movies with your friends on the phone, they’re using tiny processing chips to send information across the country instantly. Also, try to mention that Ridley Scott’s new terror movie kind of sucked.
Entertainment - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 16:00 - 66 Comments
How WSN Scammed Me Out of Six Dollars
So, nobody actually reads the Washington Square News, right? This decision to put out newspaper stands around Washington Square as if you were a real newspaper, that isn’t helping you. I swear to god the New York Times did not earn its credibility by stacking newspapers all over the city. If anything, you’ve cut down your readership, because I used to grab a copy in the Gallatin lobby before class, but now I have to be thinking about it as I walk past all of your stacks.
I know you’re waiting for the Associated Press to call about that Swarthmore president article, but they’ve already given their one intern position this year to the kid from the University of Montana who wrote about the beer bong game where somebody got stabbed. But that isn’t even the problem I have right now. Right now I want to address the classified ads that you post at least twice a week, that offer weekend jobs doing things like bartending and mystery shopping and sperm donating (pending). You know what I’m talking about. Continue…
