I’m Not Going to Do This Every Day

The brilliant p. stack once did a post about songs that you would make you look hard while listening to them on your iPod walking down the street. Sadly, I can’t find that post now. I can, however, say that this song somehow fits the bill…

from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

If I ever leave depart this fair city to someplace where I’d have to come in by train, I’d make sure that my train ended up in Grand Central Station, a lovely place that almost by itself makes commuting worthwhile. This, from the group Improv Everywhere, is a fun bit:

though it doesn’t match the inspiration of the bit from The Fisher King:

Sad News in the Times today: Richard Knerr, alleged creator of the Hula Hoop, is dead. From the paper’s excellent obit:

Mr. Knerr and Mr. Melin came up with the idea for the Hula Hoop after encountering a wooden hoop used in exercise classes in Australia. Their epiphany came when a friend from Australia showed them how to gyrate their hips to spin the thing.

Still, it’s clear that the Times doesn’t wholly have its facts straight. As everyone knows, the Hula Hoop was invented by Norville Barnes:

You know, for kids!

…&etc. Seriously, check out this, from the Times’ Play mag, by Sunday Game basketball player Chip Brown:

“Not to Get Too Mystical About It”

Two interesting bits in today’s papers to give one pause:

From the Washington Post:

Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs

Which is of course creepy–what, are you going to have to carry around a bug zapper now every time you want to have a little privacy outdoors–but also a little reassuring, because, after all, our government doesn’t spy on its citizens.

Oh.

The New Yorker this week has a fantastic piece on an effort by the Wildlife Conservation Society to document what New York looked like before it became the concrete jungle of today. Here’s what my neck of the woods used to look like:

I live a block away from this billboard; it’s the first thing I see when I get out of the subway. And while I personally find it far less disturbing than the American Apparel ad that was there last year (a guy in short boxers with his hands down his pants who looked a little too much like Ron Jeremy), others disagree.

Still, it makes this Onion bit even more appropriate:

14 American Apparel Models Freed In Daring Midnight Raid

LOS ANGELES—Acting on information gathered from billboards, alternative weeklies, and Internet banner ads, an FBI strike team liberated 14 dazed, sallow, and undernourished American Apparel models in a raid on the controversial organization’s downtown Los Angeles compound early Monday.

“There were girls lying everywhere—draped over furniture, sprawled spread-eagled in the corner, and huddled close like animals,” FBI Special Agent Curtis Froman, who oversaw the raid, said at a press conference. “Many of them had been given nothing more than a pair of tube socks or men’s briefs to wear.”

One of the joys of a summer spent traveling each week to DC has been the discovery of the quiet car, Amtrak’s safe haven from digital communications. And while I’m mostly OK with the news that NYC’s subway system will soon be wired for sound, I’d be even more pleased is some cars, um, weren’t.

Tony Karon, one of the smartest observers of our “war on terror”, has some smart thoughts on the recent terror threat to hit NYC:

I didn’t mind being stopped at a checkpoint on the West Side Highway, a little Ramallah moment in the middle of New York. What irked me, though, was the news that the “threat” that had necessitated this security clampdown emanated not from any serious intelligence quarter, but from Debka, an Israeli pseudo “intelligence” site that the Israeli security establishment will be the first to tell you should never be taken seriously. The site had reported that its monitors had picked up “chatter” on Islamist web sites to the effect that attacks would be carried out “by means of trucks loaded with radio-active material against America’s biggest city and financial nerve center.” All I can say is that if our physical security is in the hands of people who’re making tactical decisions based on what they read on Debka, we are in serious, serious shit.

See the whole thing here

For those of you who’ve seen Wong Kar-Wai’s Hong Kong gangster/love story, this needs no explanation; for those who haven’t, Shame On You! And break out your metro cards for a trip to Brooklyn, where BAM cinema is showing this all week on the big screen: