Monthly Archives: February 2011

Bags vs. Kline

This painting always makes me think of “Flight of the Bumble Bee.”

Head on over to Details for the complete oral history of the funny show, “Party Down.”

Yeah, it’s cold again in New York, but their is plenty of hot air about C.C. Sabathia keeping heads busy down in Florida. Hey, Sabathia might opt out of his deal at the end of the year: Oh, word?

Meanwhile, George King has a piece on A.J. Burnett:

“Last year it really hit me how important I am to this team,” Burnett said yesterday on the way out of George M. Steinbrenner Field.

“I am not saying that we didn’t win the World Series because of me, but I know if I had been right, it would have been a lot easier chore. I never knew how important I was to a team. That’s not being cocky or arrogant, it’s the way it is. I mean, what did I do to help?”

King also reports that Joba Chamberlain is ready to step up to Brian Cashman’s challenge.

Via Subway Art Blog, check out this wonderfulness–an artist who makes collages and gifts them around town.

The winter in New York City brings with it a collection of ridiculously poofy jackets. I’m not saying these coats aren’t effective. I own two. They just look a little silly.

But when we wear them underground, and cram ourselves together in a subway car at rush hour, they become a problem. Some of these jackets double a person’s width. And nobody can control the hems of the longer varieties. Flayed jacket tails obscure newspapers and brush cheeks with regularity.

One of the very welcome aspects of spring will be jumping into a waiting subway car without tucking in the edges of my marshmallow coat. It’ll feel like freedom.

For about two weeks, that is, until the heat becomes so oppressive down there that I’ll long for the onset of the next winter.

“The Lovers,” By Pablo Picasso (1923)

From DJ Matt B:

Oh, hell yeah.

Molten chocolate cake recipe from Saveur.

[Photo Credit: foodphotoblog]

Valentine’s Day Edition: Meet Me in Montauk

It’s become something of a cliche to say that the romantic comedy is a dying genre, but I think it might at least be on a ventilator. What was the last really good one? The last romantic comedy as good as Broadcast News, let alone, say, His Girl Friday?

My favorite movie of the modern era that might be called a relationship movie is not really a romantic comedy – although it’s very funny in many places, in that kind of laugh-to-keep-from-crying way – and it is, indeed, set on Valentine’s Day. It’s mostly about a relationship, but it’s also about the human mind and storytelling. And depending on your mood and your general feelings about love at the moment, it can be read as either hopeful or depressing. I think it’s both – or anyway, it’s about as hopeful as a movie can be while still recognizing certain depressing realities. Yep, I’m talking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

When I first saw it, at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas, I was not in a good place, romantically speaking, and while I loved it immensely I also thought it was incredibly sad. Now, while I certainly won’t claim it’s an inspiring cupful of cheer, I take a less bleak view. Not so much that love will triumph (the odds are against it, in this film) but that love is worth it. Or, okay, at the very least inevitable. It’s one of those movies that’s a bit of a Rorschach blot. And beyond the central story of Joel (Jim Carry the last time he was good) and Clementine (a fantastic Kate Winslet), there’s a fairly spectacular subplot featuring mind-twisting sci-fi, Mark Ruffalo, Kirstin Dunst, the great Tom Wilkinson, and Elijah Woods in the role he was born to play, a whiny creep. The structure is complex and twisty but always somehow comprehensible in a way that’s pretty much brilliant and explains why I will always have nothing but love for screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and his darker and more intellectual style bounces perfectly off Michel Gondry’s whimsical and less tightly-wound direction. And did I mention the soundtrack is fantastic too? The trailer really doesn’t do this movie credit:

I’ve never gone out to Montauk on Valentine’s Day. But I bet if you did, you’d find some very cold, lovelorn people with good taste in movies.

Valentine’s Day flicks via Photo Booth.

[Photo Credit: Marilyn Minter]

Bounce…

The wife says to me yesterday, “I don’t want you to bring me flowers tomorrow. I’m serious. I don’t want you spending a fortune.”

She thinks Valentine’s Day is a trumped-up, commercial holiday, and she’s right. I bring her flowers all the time, just cause, and I don’t need a holiday to tell her that she’s the love of my life, though I’ll probably say it again today…jut cause. The emmis is the emmis, am I right?

In the meantime, I hope you guys all have a good day, whether you are married, single, in a relationship, or newly divorced. You can swing by the Banter for the love and a cyber hug. We’ll be here.

[Photo Still from “An American in Paris”]

On my way to the grocery store yesterday I stopped and tilted my nose in the air like I was a dog. It was warm in the sun and I thought I smelled it–the distinct odor of spring, which can only mean one thing: “Baseball.” It is the smell of soil, carried through the breeze. Eh, I think I might have been straining.

This morning, however, there it was again. Sure, this is a false spring we’ve got on our hands this week in New York (it is supposed to reach 50 degrees today), but I’ll take it.

Couple of Yankee notes fuh ya:

Brain Cashman has some tough love for Joba Chamberlain and Keith Olbermann is even tougher on Derek Jeter.

Update: Oh, and some cool news in the Yankee blogosphere–the Yankeeist and Yankee U have merged to form The Yankee Analysts. Be sure to drop by and check ’em out. I’m sure they’ll be doing some fine work this season.

[Picture by Richard Diebenkorn]

Pitchers and catchers report.

We cool out:

Ben Shpigel profiles the Yankees’ new pitching coach Larry Rothschild today in the Times:

At every stop Rothschild, 56, has burnished his reputation as one of baseball’s premier pitching instructors, renowned for his meticulous preparation, troubleshooting abilities and communication skills. Along the way, those assets have allowed him to connect with volatile personalities like Carlos Zambrano and Kevin Brown; free spirits like Jose Rijo and Al Leiter; and, yes, even “idiots” like Charlton, who called Rothschild “as good as it gets.”

“He learns how to get into guys’ heads but have them trust him,” [Norm] Charlton said in a telephone interview. “The reason he’s able to do that is because he’s right 99 percent of the time. What he says works.”

[Photo Credit: Tim Souers]

Hubba Hubba.

Grey skies, snow flurries in New York.

Stay warm, eat well, be happy.

[Picture by Bags]