Metroland

Afternoon Inanity

Congratulations, Meisha!

Contributing writer Meisha Rosenberg won first place for Arts Criticism (circulation under 50,000) at the 2009 AAN Awards this weekend in Tuscon, Az.

Her winning essays can be read here, here and here.

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough . . .

YouTube has disallowed folks to embed MJ videos anywhere (out of respect?), so, you'll have to deal with links, but the following is our humble Best-Of ode to the King of Pop (may he rest).

"Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" (behold the mystic orbs)

"Smooth Criminal" (in its glorious entirety)

"Scream" (Warhol, Buddha, Magritte, anime, and zero-G racquetball)

"Black or White" (with McCaulay Culkin and George Wendt)

"Billy Jean" ('nough said)

Oscar Doubles Down

Well! Not to distract y'all from the shenanigans at the State Capitols (Albany and Columbia, S.C.), but today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced that number of films that will be nominated for Best Picture will be doubled from 5 to 10. The idea is that more interesting and/or popular films will get noms.

This is the way things were in the Olden Days.

Take 1934 for example. The nominated films spanned Aug. 1932-Dec. 1933:

42ND STREET  (Warner Bros.) Directed by Lloyd Bacon, Busby Berkeley
A FAREWELL TO ARMS  (Paramount) Directed by Frank Borzage
CAVALCADE  (Fox) Directed by Frank Lloyd
I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG  (Warner Bros.) Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
LADY FOR A DAY  (Columbia) Directed by Frank Capra
LITTLE WOMEN  (RKO Radio) Directed by George Cukor
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII  (United Artists/London Films) Directed by Alexander Korda
SHE DONE HIM WRONG  (Paramount)  Directed by Lowell Sherman
SMILIN' THROUGH  (M-G-M) Directed by Sidney Franklin
STATE FAIR  (Fox) Directed by Henry King

This was the most economically awful year of the Great Depression, and every one of these films was a box-office hit: the smash musical the revived the genre; the deeply romantic take on Hemmingway's popular novel; the stiff-upper-Brit-lip drama by Noël Coward; the ripped-from-the-headlines prison drama; the heartwarming Capra comedy; the tasteful literary adaptation starring Katharine Hepburn; the biopic with a scene-stealing, starmaking turn by Charles Laughton as the queen-beheading monarch; the racy Mae West sex comedy (ESPECIALLY the Mae West sex comedy); the weepie love story; and the heartwarming (nonmusical) story of a farm family with the biggest star in Hollywood, Will Rogers.

But guess which one one won?

Yup, the prestigious set-in-Britain drama, CAVALCADE. Some things NEVER change.   (Updated)

All-America City

Albany won again.

Here are the Top 10 locations to put up those triumphant All-America City signs:

 

10. Next to every official city sign bearing the mayor's name.

9. At the site of the former walkway to Arbor Hill Elementary School.

8. At the entrance to the Capital Hills Golf Course.

7. By the Walgreen’s on Holland Avenue.

6. At one of  the Port of Albany locations the FBI raided. 

5. At the entrance to the Rapp Road landfill.

4. At the future site of the AlbanyConvention Center.

3. At the site of the Wellington Hotel.

2. South Lake and Madison avenues, Pine Hills.

1. First and Quail streets, West Hill.

Morris: Mayor Jennings plays politics with a million bucks

"The Jennings administration has a hard time playing by the rules," writes Albany mayoral candidate Shawn Morris. "This week saw evidence of that when the city’s planning commissioner failed to show up at a meeting scheduled specifically for him, to discuss the city’s plan for nearly $1 million in additional community development funds being made available through the federal stimulus package."

According to a Times Union interview with Councilwoman Carolyn McLaughlin, members of the council found out about the mayor's intended use for this money--demolishing 12-14 buildings and stabilizing two--only after his office issued a press release (thanks Jordan). The councilwomen point out that leaving the council out of the discussions about the CDBG funds does no one any good, considering that they were elected by many of the people who will be affected directly by this money.

"Now the city has drawn up a plan for spending that money," Morris continues in her blog post. "But they haven’t shared it with the Common Council, as the rules say they should. They put an outline of the plan somewhere on the city website. Unfortunately, most of the people who live in the affected communities don’t have access to the internet. I also heard that they “advertised” in the newspaper. I didn’t see it, and well, neither did virtually anyone in the affected communities."

Read the rest of Morris' post at shawnmorris.metroland.net.

Morris: one city, two sets of rules

Albany mayoral candidate Shawn Morris continues to hammer away at the favortism that the critics of Mayor Jerry Jennings say control Albany.

It turns out that Albany Police Chief James Tuffey should not have been carrying hand guns for the past 10 years.  And he reportedly owns three guns.   

Whoops.

That’s basically the reaction of Mayor Jennings.  It doesn’t matter.

It turns out that the Chief is no longer certified to be a police officer, and didn’t know it. 

Whoops.

It doesn’t matter, because he is an “administrator” of the department.

Shouldn’t the administrator of a department be aware of how police officers are certified or when someone needs a handgun permit?  Shouldn’t those be two important details to keep track of in a city with over 300 police officers and a problem with gun violence? It does matter. 

 

It matters because this is just another episode in a long story of "One City, Two Sets of Rules."

Continue reading at Morris' Metroland blog here.

Quote of the Day

            "I cannot tell you how inspiring it is to see the fate of the legislative agenda hinging on a person who is under indictment for stabbing his girlfriend with a broken glass."

--Gail Collins, The New York Times

Riddle #5

In which bridges are crossed, slinkies skate in shopping malls, and women are swept off their feet.

Young Conservative Rappers

And I thought Michael Steele was wiggity-wack.

Lawsuit threat looms over Albany application for $1 million grant

Aaron Mair, the founder of the W. Haywood Burns Environmental Education Center, told the Democratic caucus of Albany Common Council that every option, including legal action, would be utilized by his organization if the council moved forward with a proposal to reroute Patroon Creek into Tivoli Lake. 

Tonight, the caucus was considering a resolution authored by Ward 4 Councilwoman Barbara Smith to approve a grant application seeking $1 million in federal stimulus money for the "Patroon Creek Daylighting and Tivoli Restoration Plan." The grant money would be used to "daylight" portions of the creek, essentially unearthing sections flowing through an underground culvert to allow the sunlight to cleanse the polluted water. Also, the plan would aim to ease the heavy flow of the creek that can lead to erosion and threaten sewer lines.

(The Patroon runs to the Hudson River along I-90 from the western edge of Albany. As Dan Van Riper wrote last week, gross orange leachate oozes from the Rapp Road Landfill into this creek.)

All of this remediation of the Patroon is OK with Mair and WHBEEC. What he disapproves of is the plan to run the contaminated water of the Patroon into the pristine, "class A" waters of the Tivoli. Proponents of the project claim that running the Patroon into the Tivoli will aerate the oxygen starved lake. Mair dismisses this supposed benefit for the Tivoli as a "half-baked" notion. He said that he sees this as an attempt to exploit an underappreciated, poorly maintained natural resource in Arbor Hill.

"While it is no major feat to daylight Patroon," a prepared statement from Mair reads, "this project will destroy not 'restore' Tivoli Lake."

Rapp Road Landfill oozes orange leachate

Daniel Van Riper writes: 

We’ve been hearing a lot about some of the collateral damage caused by the Albany Dump, officially called the Rapp Road “Landfill.”  . . . 

But oddly enough, there hasn’t been much interest in taking a look at the horrible toxic sludge that pours out of The Dump every single day. The word for this terrible crap is “leachate.” Most dumps both active and inactive manufacture this leachate deep within their airless bowels and it is usually a strange dirty orange color. 

Officially, allegedly, this orange leachate is “collected” into the City of Albany sewer system to be cleaned before being poured into the Hudson River. Now, I’ve always wondered how you collect runoff from a sprawling ever-expanding dump sitting on sand over an aquifer. Seems a tall order to me., especially since on my visits to The Dump I have never seen any visible evidence of this alleged collection system.

Continue reading this sometimes disgusting article here.

Penny Riddling

I've been trying to keep up with this video project Matthew Loiacono's got going whereby each track from his Penny Riddle EP is getting its own one-minute illustration. Here are the latest two:

No Salvation, but a Couple of Laughs

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Time for this week's movie reviews. (I reviewed the French romantic comedy Shall We Kiss?, but since it has vanished from theaters after only one week, I will not excerpt my scribblings here.)

Ann Morrow on Terminator Salvation:

"To add atmosphere to all the heavy-metal carnage, McG brushstrokes the dreary landscape with evocative visuals such as nighttime flare rockets reminiscent of Vietnam, oil-drum fires that could’ve come from Kuwait, and incongruously enough, Nazi-like cattle-car roundups. It’s more than distracting, as part of the film’s appeal should’ve been a feature-length travelogue to the dehumanized, machine-made apocalypse of Earth in the year 2029. Problem is, Terminator Salvation is so lacking in human interest that the machines have already won."

Laura Leon on Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian:

"For the most part, the writing is a mess, with gaping, unexplained plot holes and a completely uninspired challenge to the protagonist. In fact, in almost all ways, Night at the Museum is a mess, and yet, its individual gifts give audiences something to really enjoy."

Read both reviews in their entirety here.

Terence Kindlon on the Newburgh 4

Albany's own Terence Kindlon is interviewed by TPM Muckraker on the Newburgh 4 and the FBI's tactics:

" 'It could have been any kind of conspiracy you wanted,' said Kindlon. 'I think what happened is that the FBI--during the Bush administration--basically designed a conspiracy, dreamed up a scary story, shooting down airplanes... and they found four idiots to become the defendants. It was like they dressed them up in halloween costumes.'

He called the Newburgh case 'an idiotic charade,' adding 'it's like professional wrestling: everyone knows its fake, but it's fun to watch.' "

Read he whole thing here.

Breakfast at Sulimay's

The nerve. The arrogance. Where do music critics get off throwing their opinions around all willy-nilly? Why should we care what some shlub at some kitty-litter rag thinks about some disc we've never heard of anyway? God--it's like they've got retired city workers from Philadelphia doing this work over styrofoam cups of coffee . . .

The bus stops stopping here

Cecelia Martinez writes about the CDTA's attempts to cut back on service hours in today's issue.

Blue bags have been placed on 250 bus-stop signs throughout the Capital Region, notifying riders of route consolidations by the Capital District Transportation Authority. As part of that consolidation, CDTA will eliminate some bus stops. On routes where buses once stopped at every block, for example, some routes will now have bus stops only every two or three blocks.

This has transportation advocates concerned with how the changes will affect riders, and upset over what they feel has been a lack of public notification and involvement by CDTA.

Rumble in the 7th Ward

The Albany Democratic Committee will endorse anyone for Cathy Fahey’s council seat, except Cathy Fahey

Team player, said Bob Jukes, means exactly that: team player. Cathy Fahey, councilwoman for the 7th Ward, might represent the 7th well in the Albany Common Council, but when it comes to her responsibilities in the ward’s Democratic committee, Jukes, the ward leader, said, she hasn’t been a team player.

Fahey, who is running for a second term in the 7th Ward, has now twice lost her committee’s endorsement vote. The first time, she lost to George Lynch, who later withdrew from the race due to a job conflict. The second time, Fahey lost to political neophyte Susan Tobin. However, Jukes failed to invite Fahey to this second vote, which he now admits was a mistake, and Fahey complained to the committee’s chair, Dan McCoy. A third vote has been scheduled.

Afternoon Inanity

After money loses the last of its exchange value, we'll still have something useful to do with it.

Awkward Family Photos

It's already done been linked all over this here internet, but in case you haven't yet seen this stuff, do click.