Last night, at the Housing Works Bookstore and Café, readers took the stage to perform “three-minute punk stories” (some of which were only nominally three minutes, punk-themed or even stories), an installment of an occasional story telling series organized and hosted by Jason Diamond, the founder of Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Read More
Fifteen years ago, the plan was to create a fashion column for VICE, the Canadian skater-rag-turned-ASME-nominated-massive-media-company co-founder Suroosh Alvi told The Observer, “because then we could get fashion advertising for the magazine.” But then they realized they “didn’t know anything about fashion.”
In this twisted spirit, the long-running, wildly popular DOs and DON’Ts column—photos of unfortunate, real street fashion captioned harshly by VICE’s editors—was born. It has become “the little franchise that could” for the magazine and website, Mr. Alvi said.
And at the launch party for a new compilation anthology, DOs & DON’Ts Book 2, on Tuesday night, we brought our camera to the packed Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO and documented those celebrating the bawdy column that spawned many imitations (including our slideshow, below the cut). Read More
Yesterday saw over one thousand concerts in the greater New York area, organized under the umbrella of Make Music NY, a rambling participatory music festival that spills over into this weekend. The sheer number of concerts means it’s more than any one news organization could ever hope to cover (and, in fact, interest in MMNY was so great that their website crashed yesterday due to too many visitors), but we did our best. We sent correspondents to four single-instrument “Mass Appeal” events, where musicians of any level could be involved in a group performance. Below the cut, we chat with players of the guitar, drums, bagpipes (complete with a dude in a kilt!) and the ukulele–the event for which was held in Williamsburg, natch. Read More
A few weeks ago, Vince Masi’s website, skatedrinkdance.com, crashed due to a virus. It has since been cleaned, resuscitated and put back online, but Mr. Masi has yet to recover. “It was a nightmare,” he said. “I think that was probably, like, the most despair I’ve had to deal with.”
It wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to him—a few years ago he had to shack up with his mom when a business plan fell through and once he irreparably damaged his car by loading it with too much stuff—but it was one of the first things he couldn’t fix on his own. Why? Because he doesn’t speak that language, he said. “I don’t speak nerd code.”
So, he’s not tech savvy. But he is the king of retro, the sultan of skating, the heart and soul behind an ingenious event: Down and Derby, a roller-skating dance party held once a month at Dekalb Market in Brooklyn. Read More
Perfection is overrated. It’s boring and predictable and uninspiring. But imperfection? Now that’s fun.
Take for instance last night’s 2012 Vimeo Awards show. Within the first few minutes, the audio crapped out. Awkward silence ensued. The light projections turned on and off sporadically. Jokes were occasionally lost. Awkward laughter ensued. The audio crapped out again. Some award presenters missed their cues. Others read verbatim off the teleprompters.
Imperfection might be, um, imperfect, but it is also endearing and refreshing. And, given that this was only Vimeo’s second semi-annual award show, we’ll cut them some slack. After all, it wasn’t the show that people were there for, it was the films. And not just any films: user-generated online films. Read More
Last Saturday evening, cousins Julia Casey and Lily Warnke, squeezed into silk tank tops and mini skirts and migrated to north Brooklyn. Later that night, they planned to make their way to a bar on the Lower East Side, but first, they had to attend a benefit for Ms. Warnke’s mother’s interdisciplinary art gallery and reading room, Proteus Gowanus.
As the young women traversed the event space—pausing in front of the outdoor stage (Ms. Casey: “I think that woman just sang about a Communist eating a fish”) and quenching their thirst with red wine—the crowd thickened.
For the last year, the theme of the artwork, installations, exhibits, and classes at Proteus Gowanus has been migration. “We looked at it from the point of view of populations, objects, the future, and time travel,” said Tammy Pittman, Ms. Warnke’s mother and the executive director of the space. But its meaning was flexible, she added, and meant to be used in a variety of different contexts. Read More
