“Oh, God, we’re living in a hell that I can’t even begin to describe!”

That's Arthur Nersesian, the 49-year-old playwright, poet and novelist, talking about the changes in his home neighborhood of the East Village. He's the subject of an entertaining profile in the Times today.

Unlike many New Yorkers who inhabited the East Village of the 1980s, Mr. Nersesian seemed to remember every aspect of that gritty and often dangerous time with fondness. Even as he described the endless parade of prostitutes down East 12th Street or the bonfires set by the homeless in Tompkins Square Park, there was a palpable tenderness to his voice.
“There was a sense of community there,” Mr. Nersesian said. “I couldn’t walk down the street without saying hello to someone. You’d see Allen Ginsberg all over the place, and you’d see the other Beats.
“I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Beats, but there was an exemplary quality to the artist as citizen. You think about artists today in our society, and they’re kind of removed. You don’t really know them. When Ginsberg died, a definitive quality from the East Village — at least from my East Village — was gone.”
Perhaps inevitably, the East Village of today, with its fashionable bars and restaurants and its gleaming glass towers, fills him with despair. “Oh, God, we’re living in a hell that I can’t even begin to describe!” Mr.
Nersesian said mournfully that day at the diner. “It’s amazing how memory really does become a kind of curse. If I was just coming to the city today, I’d probably think, ‘Oh, this is a really interesting place,’ but it’s trying to tell people, ‘You know, there was a war fought here, a strange economic, cultural battle that went on, and I saw so many wonderful people lost among the casualties.’ ”

Also from the article:

In his 1992 play “Rent Control,” Mr. Nersesian incorporated an experience he had when he returned to the office tower that had replaced his childhood apartment.
“I tried to go to the exact same space,” he recalled, “and it turned out to be the romance division of Random House or something. I walked in and the secretary said, ‘Can I help you?’ And I think I tried to convey to her that this was where I lived for the first 10 years of my life; this space here was where I was bathed in the sink. And she looked at me like I was a nut.”

[Image: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times]

Welcome to our pretty bank branch

We've written before about the increase in bank robberies in NYC this year. Fancy bank branches abound on seemingly every corner of some East Village streets. It's so convenient! On the topic of the increase in bank robberies, the Times makes this observation today:

A look at the data shows that bank robbers seem to prefer some of the inviting environments of the newer banks on the city scene. Sovereign, Wachovia and Commerce — with plants arrayed on marble floors, jars of lollipops set on low-slung counters and no bullet-resistant barriers between tellers and customers — have some the highest ratios of robberies to branches.

I wonder when bank officials will realize these sparkly new branches are in the middle of an enormous metropolitan area, and not in Pleasantville USA...

EV Grieve's Fashion Week in Review (with apologies)

A tour of the LES

Big eater Crazy Legs Conti takes on the LES food scene here in this video clip...it's not that old...interesting to see what has changed since then...and what hasn't...

Under the Brooklyn Bridge

For Friday: "Nightmare In Pink Dead Cool"

The Chrome Cranks. The lone comment to this video on YouTube:

one of the best NYC bands when rock n roll in NY was really wild and pure... fuck williamsburg's pussie bands

Fashion Week photos found in the EV Grieve in-box

Was nice of someone to send them to me. 

Sweetness

Hunter-Gatherer takes a look at "21" via one of my all-time favorites, Sweet Smell of Success.

As he notes:

This movie is a must see for film buffs (especially NYC ones) but what struck me, while reviewing the film for the first time in a decade, is the ever-so-timely portrayal of media corruption.

Christmas on Mars at KGB

Not much of a Flaming Lips fan these days*, but this looks interesting and unwatchable at the same time. From a press release!:

This fall, legendary cult-rock band The Flaming Lips, Warner Brothers Records, and film company Cinema Purgatorio will bring the long-awaited Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips to offbeat venues across the country.

Christmas on Mars will open theatrically in New York City on September 12, 2008, presented in a custom-designed cinema at the KGB Complex at 85 East Fourth Street, screening in high definition video and the custom designed Zeta Bootis Mega Supersonic Super-Sound Surround System, which the Lips created for the film. Christmas on Mars will screen at unusual showtimes, the first of which have been have been announced (and some have already sold out) on cinemapurgatorio.com. Showtimes will include 7am and 9am showtimes, so audience members can go to Mars before they get to work, as well as some traditional evening showtimes.

Christmas on Mars is the directorial debut of Wayne Coyne, lead singer and frontman for the Flaming Lips. Coyne co-directed with George Salisbury, an audiovisual technician who works with the band. Coyne constructed much of the set - representing Mars - in his Oklahoma City backyard.

The film does indeed take place during Christmastime on Mars, as the colonization of the Red Planet is underway. But when an oxygen generator and a gravity control pod malfunction, Major Syrtis (the Lips' Steven Drozd) and his team (including the Lips' bassist Michael Ivins) fear for the worst. Syrtis hallucinates about the birth of a baby, and many other strange things. Meanwhile, a compassionate alien superbeing (Coyne) arrives, inspiring and helping the isolated astronauts.

More details here.

*It was at this point when I stopped liking the Flaming Lips:



** OK, that was actually pretty cool. And that dialogue!

Report: Cops interrogate Leftover Crack manager; defend using Taser during arrest

Lincoln Anderson reports in The Villager:

Following the arrest of Scott Sturgeon, 32, lead singer of the punk-rock band Leftover Crack, and four of his fans in the East Village last Friday evening, three men identifying themselves as Police Department Internal Affairs Bureau officers paid a surprise visit to Bill Cashman, the band’s manager, Monday afternoon. The three officers easily entered the building, on Avenue C near 10th St., since its front door had reportedly been left open due to ongoing construction inside.

Later in the article we hear from Deputy Inspector Dennis De Quatro, Ninth Precinct commanding officer, who defended the use of a Taser on one of the people arrested at Tompkins Square Park last Friday night.

The man was tased through his shirt on his upper torso for three seconds with the Taser being used in “touch-stun mode.” The deputy inspector noted that a Taser’s other mode is to shoot two electrically charged darts, which are attached to wires on the Taser, up to 20 or 30 feet. These darts puncture the person’s skin and leave wounds that could get infected, he said. The “touch-stun” technique — in which the Taser is manually pressed against the individual — is safer, especially at close range, he noted.

More EV Grieve Donut Social coverage here.

New York has lovely skylines, stylish and diverse people, great art galleries, and we're really expensive and not too fucking friendly

According to Travel + Leisure's annual America's Favorite Cities list...New York received the most No. 1 ratings -- 11 in total! We're tops in classical music, theater, diversity, style, people-watching, skyline/views, art galleries, local boutiques and luxury boutiques. That's only nine. Whatever!

And NYC was dead last for "peace and quiet" and "relaxing retreat" and — shocker! — "affordability." And NYC was 24 out of 25 for "friendliness." That's fucking bullshit! Fuck you!

No rent for you -- but only if you're fun

"Fun" can be so subjective. Sign graffiti on Avenue A near St. Mark's.

Is Reveille is at 05:00? Or is that last call?

On Water Street near Wall Street.

Report: Demolition permit for St. Brigid’s is still in effect

Could the church still be torn down?

The Villager reports:

A demolition permit for St. Brigid’s Church on Avenue B was still in effect last week, despite the promise in May of this year of $20 million from an anonymous benefactor to restore the 1849 building and the East Village parish that the Catholic Archdioceses of New York dissolved in 2004.
But an archdiocese spokesperson said last week that architects were preparing plans and contractors were drawing up documents for building permits.
“We know the demolition permit has to be withdrawn and we decided to do it all at once,” said Joseph Zwilling. “There is no construction date and we’ll make an announcement when we have one.”
Nevertheless, Edwin Torres, president of the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s, the group that went to court in 2005 to prevent the church building’s demolition, said last week that the committee was troubled that the demolition permit was still on file at the Department of Buildings.

Yes, we should all be troubled.

In a pickle Sunday

After you've pickled your livers all weekend (sorry!), head to Orchard Street Sunday for the 8th Annual NYC International Pickle Day.

According to the NY Food Museum Web site:

Your favorite street festival lives on! This year we are expanding to two blocks, giving people lots of room, and heading toward event greater demonstrations, educational displays and community involvement. Bring your own costume, and prepare to pucker!

As always, Pickle Day will feature pickles from around the world, and around the corner. In addition to expanded selection of pickled fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, we want to hear from you, what you’re doing, and your relationship to the pickling industry. It’s your festival, after all… on Orchard St, between Broome and Grand, 11-4:30.

Oh, whatever you do, don't invite Mariah!



Photo: In front of Gus's Pickles in 1990 by Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

Dear marketing people: ENOUGH with the viral campaigns

Seen on First Avenue. TV Squad was game enough to call the attached number. For a CBS series called "The Ex List." Ugh.

Previously on EV Grieve:
A poorly timed marketing campaign(?)

Righteous Hams 2: Bad to the Bone

Meant to add this to my original post...

Oh, and the Post gave the film one star. Lou Lumenick, taking a break from being a dick to Roger Ebert, writes: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro collect bloated paychecks with intent to bore in "Righteous Kill," a slow-moving, ridiculous police thriller that would have been shipped straight to the remainder bin at Blockbuster if it starred anyone else.

And in the Times, Manohla Dargis writes: In “Righteous Kill” these two godheads of 1970s cinema go macho-a-macho with each other — furrowing brows, bellowing lines, looking alternately grimly serious and somewhat bemused — in a B-movie (more like C-minus) duet that probably sounded like a grand idea when their handlers whispered it in their ears.

Lo king at an o d M A ad

2nd Ave. Sagas takes us back to 1993 with this MTA PSA:



As Benjamin Kabak notes:

I remember seeing this one in the subways, and at the time it was very appropriate. As you can see above, the ad plays on the MTA’s notoriously unreliable public address system. Fifteen years, the MTA swore they were working to improve the PA system. Based on what I hear on the trains and in stations every day, I’m guessing that the PA overhaul is one project not quite there yet.

Anarchy in the UK and US

Stupefaction provides the details on the Howl!-related panel discussion at the Bowery Poetry Club titled "Unrest in the 70s -- US vs UK."

Featured panelists:

Richard Lloyd (Television)
Ari Up (Slits)
Cynthia Sley (Bush Tetras)
Judy Nylon (Snatch)
Walter Lure (Heartbreakers)
Arturo Vega (Ramones)
Steve Garvey (Buzzcocks)

Moderator: Mary Harron

An appreciation: The P & G Cafe

Found myself on the Upper West Side late yesterday afternoon. So I stopped by the beloved P & G Cafe — the family-owned saloon that has graced the corner of 73rd and Amsterdam since 1942. Perfection. The front door was open. A small group of regulars were joking around with each other. The Yankees game was on. (Well, the Yankees are hardly perfection these days...)

Nothing new to report on the bar's fate. Latest rumor is still a Baby Gap. There has been talk of relocation. I didn't ask any questions. Was just there to enjoy it while I can. Like-minded fellows have also paid their respects in the past, including Jeremiah and Lost City.