Gore Vidal on The New York Times Magazine. On McCain: "Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?". On WFB's death: "I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred".
posted on Jun 15, 2008 - View this thread

I've only ever seen 70 & 80's era New York in movies and I've never really thought about their source of inspiration. Until I saw this.(a few graphic photos on that last link)
posted on May 26, 2008 - View this thread

In celebration of my antipodean homesickness I've spent the morning catching up with some great Australian and New Zealand musical comedy acts I've been to. You've already met Flight of the Conchords previously on mefi. Now come and meet some...
posted on Apr 23, 2008 - View this thread

Canadian-born New Yorkers Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell have an eloquent conversation (MP3) about the nature of our eternally under-confident country. Gladwell quips early on that "those of you who are familiar with my writing will know that this practice of talking about X by discussing Y is my only rhetorical move." Text (though not an exact transcript) is also available, as is a report.
posted on Apr 17, 2008 - View this thread

Blogging May Cost You Your Life NY Times discusses the possible "death by blogging" of two prominent Tech Bloggers, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, Blognation. A third, Om Malik of gigaom.com, 41, survived a heart attack in December. I am thinking twice about my late night posts.
posted on Apr 6, 2008 - View this thread

Ever want to watch a comics page get drawn at ridiculous speed? I've been reading Mer's comics since day one, but seeing an entire strip drawn and inked as a movie is almost better than watching an animated cartoon.
posted on Mar 13, 2008 - View this thread

New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer (Wiki) has been linked to a high-class prostitution ring.
posted on Mar 10, 2008 - View this thread

Sex, drugs and sleaze! Were the bad old days really the good old days? Native New Yorkers who remember the City in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, speak up! Was the Big Apple better off then or now?
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - View this thread

Love thy Neighbor Photographer and author Steven Hirsh has photographed the homes of registered New York State sex offenders. A wonderful writer and photographer, this work is chilling, alarming, beautiful. I get that Quentin Tarantino feeling of beauty and disgust. Look at me, nooooo look away. The series of 24 images are on Hirsch's website.
posted on Jan 7, 2008 - View this thread

Everyone makes New Year's resolutions. Even celebrities. And pets.
posted on Jan 4, 2008 - View this thread

During the 70s and 80s a new phenomenon appeared. Television Hijacking. It started in 1977 when a man in England hijacked the sound broadcast of a newscast. In 1986, a hijacker known as Captain Midnight hijacked HBO in response to their scrambling of television signals. The year after (20 years ago as of today), a character disguised as Max Headroom (a television character) infiltrated two Chicago television studios in one night. First the man infiltrated Channel 9 (WGN) for a few seconds with no sound, and then moved on to attack another Chicago station, this time with sound. After the Max Headroom incident, television hacking incidents were rare in the United States except for this one in Wyoming.
posted on Nov 22, 2007 - View this thread

The Garbage Game. What would you do with 64,000 tons of garbage every week? The Gotham Gazette is a not-for-profit newspaper that reports on New York City politics and policy. On their site is a highly informative game that puts you in the place of a resident and then the Sanitation Commissioner, shedding some light on NYC's garbage problem.
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

Wanna sell your TV show idea? There is no shortage of advice out there, or contests. Here are the winning pilots picked from this year's New York TV Festival, sort of a Sundance for TV newbies.
posted on Oct 24, 2007 - View this thread

The first time the Simpsons, the iPod and Microsoft were mentioned in the New York Times. Also, Times Square, Marijuana and Googling plus much more (up to 9 volumes so far-scroll down for a list with links) with links to the actual articles or PDFs. Some others are Hillary Rodham, Nintendo, the Drudge Report and the VCR.
posted on Oct 3, 2007 - View this thread

National Library Of New Zealand.
posted on Sep 25, 2007 - View this thread

Randall's Lost New York City Collection "documents the destruction of many of New York City's 19th century tenement and other buildings, so that we can mourn the lost [and] appreciate the endangered." Gallery 1, 2.
posted on Sep 20, 2007 - View this thread

DUI for NOT Driving while Drunk A New Jersey appellate court yesterday upheld the principle that convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) can be imposed on individuals who were not driving. This is not one of those kooky old laws on the books.
posted on Sep 14, 2007 - View this thread

Two tales of fraud from the New Yorker. [more inside]
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

Bilderbook.
posted on Aug 16, 2007 - View this thread

Anthony H. Wilson: 20th February 1950 - 10th August 2007
posted on Aug 10, 2007 - View this thread

The Lightning Field in New Mexico was one of the first earth art installations when it was installed back in the 70's. 30 years later it still stands and turns even the time you spend there into art. Here's an account by Pamela Petro of her time spent there.
posted on Jul 28, 2007 - View this thread

Zeitgeist, the movie [Google Video link embedded] - An interesthing, if bizarre, mix of buffed-up comparative mythology, 9/11 conspiracy theories and New world order rambling about banks, loans, debts and war. Is paranoia the spirit of our times?
posted on Jul 26, 2007 - View this thread

Claybourne was a unique and well produced radio drama set in New Zealand. It was science fiction, a thriller, a soap opera. It aired in 96 five minute episodes, but died mid-storyline when it's creative team- like so many creative teams- couldn't get it together.
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

I have been called a voluptuary, a sybarite, a hedonist, a creep. .. George Meyer's silly rhapsody on conferences, symposia, seminars, etc.: "The OFF-SITE is a born provocateur. She blends the dirty fun of a PowerPoint presentation with the raw danger of a Kaffeeklatsch. One minute she’s showing you charts and graphs, then up pops a “Far Side” cartoon. It’s high-stakes poker, and everything’s wild." from the New Yorker , May 2007.
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

Iran: This musician is revolutionizng the music scene (Video) Mohsen Namjoo and her superstar
posted on Jun 13, 2007 - View this thread

Getting around underground in NYC is no longer only for people who already know how to get around underground in NYC. Graphic Designer Eric Jabbour has been spending his free time obsessively redesigning MTA transit maps. And the results are striking. Non-New Yorkers will undoubtedly be able to figure out what's what. Cleaner lines and neighborhood boundaries are just a few features. Also, one can clearly see and understand transfer points and more street names.
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - View this thread

While the Queen was in New Zealand on Christmas Eve 1953 a lahar destroyed a rail bridge in Tangiwai. When the Wellington to Auckland Express tried to cross the bridge, the resulting accident killed 151 people. On behalf of her mother, Prince Andrew is currently in New Zealand, commemorating a hero, and another lahar has errupted, from the same volcano. The death toll is zero.
posted on Mar 18, 2007 - View this thread

London calling to the faraway towns. James Harding of the London Times thinks that London is fast eclipsing New York as the world's favourite city. At least for business. He's only echoing earlier comment, but is he right? It’s hard to say which personality, New Yorker or Londoner, is preferable — the ballsy versus the stoic, the gruff versus the curmudgeonly, the sharp-tongued versus the quick-witted. But the real difference between the two is this: New Yorkers come from the five boroughs; Londoners from the five continents. They are Poles, Pakistanis, Brazilians, Americans, Nigerians and more. There are, it is said, 300 languages spoken in London.
posted on Mar 13, 2007 - View this thread

Eric Schaeffer wants to marry you
posted on Feb 8, 2007 - View this thread

Welcome (well, almost, the roman calendar is a touch early) to the Year of the Fire Pig. See what it means for you as we finish the Fire Dog Year.
posted on Jan 1, 2007 - View this thread

So you can sing along this evening. Happy New Year from Glasgow where our Hogmanay event has been cancelled due to storms.
posted on Dec 31, 2006 - View this thread

Tomorrow morning, from this place, I'll announce that I am a candidate for President of the United States.. John Edwards prepares to throw his hat into the ring via YouTube, from New Orleans' 9th Ward.
posted on Dec 27, 2006 - View this thread

VeinViewer is an infrared-absorption interactive "X-ray" device using advanced real time signal processing and a projector. Google video. YouTube video with short explanation.
posted on Dec 20, 2006 - View this thread

Roz Chast, noted New Yorker cartoonist with a penchant for sly wordplay, interviewed [embedded video] by Steve Martin. [more inside]
posted on Dec 18, 2006 - View this thread

"A fedora hat worn by me without the necessary protective irony would eat through my head and kill me." Goodbye to George W.S. Trow, one of the strangest, wisest, disturbingest writer ever to gape at, marvel at, and love his fellow Americans. His 1980 essay "Within the Context of No Context" (which shared with J.D. Salinger's last published story the distinction of taking up an entire issue of the New Yorker) placed television, irony, and distance at the center of the new United States. He also wrote the less well-known (but equally beautiful) short story collection Bullies, along with a novel and several screenplays, helped found National Lampoon, and was a staff writer at the New Yorker from 1966 until 1994, when he quit in protest of Roseanne Barr's guest-editing stint. He died on November 24, in Naples, at the age of 63. Appreciations from the New York Observer, Slate, and Gawker.
posted on Dec 12, 2006 - View this thread

S4 from NY to Seattle.
posted on Nov 25, 2006 - View this thread

Freemasonry has a long history of accusations of evil conspiratorial machinations, both in print and elsewhere. But it seems that, if you ask most Masons, they're just in it for the booze. Now, the newspaper of record is taking a look at the Masons' efforts to open up to the public in this post-Da Vinci code age.
posted on Oct 4, 2006 - View this thread

I Do Nothing All Day - The guys at idonothingallday.com (perhaps NSFW) do a great job of capturing the simple act of admiring a beautiful woman passing you by while walking around on the streets of NYC. Some of the smiles can really lighten up your day. My particular favorites here, and here. Most of the videos are embedded Quicktime with a few recent Flash videos.
posted on Sep 18, 2006 - View this thread

Every issue of the New Yorker on a portable hard drive. For $299 you get an 80GB hard drive loaded with every article, poem, short story, advertisement and lame cartoon that has appeared in the over 4,000 issues of The New Yorker Magazine since February, 1925. The vintage ads alone MIGHT be worth it (depending on res/format) but does anyone really WANT every one of those unfunny cartoons? Does anyone outside NYC even care that this magazine is still being published?
posted on Aug 24, 2006 - View this thread

'History on the Half Shell.' "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said, "Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed-- Now if you're ready, Oysters (via) dear, We can begin to feed." . . . . . "O Oysters," said the Carpenter, "You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none-- And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.------Lewis Carroll-------
posted on Jul 23, 2006 - View this thread

Then, as he escorted me to the elevator, he said, “New Yorker? How many people see that shits?” He reflected a moment. “Damn. Who needs Hot 97? I got New Yorker and MySpace.”
posted on Jul 10, 2006 - View this thread

Speaking truth to power: when power speaks back (scroll down). Graduating senior Jean Rohe & Senator John McCain spoke at the New School's graduation ceremony at Madison Square Garden this Saturday. Rohe's speech attacking McCain's actions & positions has been hailed by many on the Left as "speaking truth to power". McCain staffer Mark Salter thinks Jean isn't being fair to his boss. Scroll down to read his reaction.
posted on May 22, 2006 - View this thread

New Zealand is a backwater when it comes to high speed internet. Today the government has done something about it.
posted on May 3, 2006 - View this thread

Britain's New Labour have very short memories!

They are trying to persuade people to vote for them by highlighting exactly how they got in to power themselves as being a fault in the Conservative Party
posted on Apr 19, 2006 - View this thread

Newsfilter:Former FEMA Director Michael Brown engages in a heated exchange during a Senate hearing Friday. Here is the C-SPAN coverage.
posted on Feb 10, 2006 - View this thread

Long before Nine Inch Nails and Pigface, Trent Reznor was in a new wave group called Option 30... Here are two videos (flash, youtube) of live performances. Trent's voice is unmistakable in this song, but this cover of "Eyes Without a Face" may make you wish you had a face without ears.
posted on Jan 29, 2006 - View this thread

Corporate Interest Plot to Overthrow US Government. Approximately 72-years ago, the predecessor to the House Un-American Affairs Committee, known as the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, investigated claims made by Marine Corps General Smedley Butler that a vast right-wing conspiracy funded by the American Liberty League (Wiki) (funded by US Steel, Goodyear, DuPont, Morgan-Stanley, Chase-Manhattan, Remington Arms, and others) with backing from some of America's wealthiest citizens (such as Al Smith and Irene DuPont) and various Wall Street interests (1930s American Business seemed to be pro-fascism as a hedge against communists and socialists to protect their own wealth in the face of the Great Depression).  Their goal was to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt and install a military dictatorship in order to stop FDR's New Deal and its "redistribution of wealth" and to enact fascist policies to protect the economy and their investments. [more inside]
posted on Jan 18, 2006 - View this thread

So it actually happened. Not going anywhere tomorrow? The last time the MTA went on strike in New York was 1980. This time, one would hope there are plans already in place to cope with what will no doubt be an awful morning for millions, though the information seems dated already. Perhaps ths might be a good opportunity to share any tips and information about the situation. [newsfilter, of course]
posted on Dec 20, 2005 - View this thread

READY TO ROLL? " . .Carnival produces $900 million in annual spending and more than $50 million in direct tax benefits to government. " New Orleans depends on tourism , now more than ever before. but are they really ready to host Mardi Gras in 06? What are locals saying? This will make the 150th Carnival the city has seen, but should it take place?
posted on Nov 22, 2005 - View this thread

The Cult of Zaoui. Algerian Ahmed Zaoui arrived in New Zealand in December 2002, having been convicted in Belgium and France (in absentia) for terrorism-related offences, on a false passport requesting refugee status. He was imprisoned for two years (spending ten months in solitary confinement) as a result of the Security Intelligence Service issuing a security risk certificate, before the NZ Supreme Court granted him bail. He now lives in a Dominican Priory in Auckland under curfew, but manages (accompanied by his crusading young lawyer) to give public lectures, offer eulogies, publish a book of poetry, appear in a music video (wmv), sing onstage at the NZ Music Awards, inspire a fund-raising cookbook "Conversations over Couscous", and has become (depending on your viewpoint) a reluctant or carefully cultivated celebrity.
posted on Nov 21, 2005 - View this thread