Recent Stories with tag new york

Pro tip: A laptop aids in the pounds-per-hour to kilograms, and Fahrenheit to Celcius conversion.

Our correspondent Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years. When she's not busy trying to figure out what the French are saying, she's busy trying to figure out what to say to the French. She posts frequently at An American Mom in Paris.

Holidays abroad can be lonely. When a holiday rolls around, we ache a little and talk about home a lot. We put on happy smiles for the Skype session involving every relative we have, plus a few we didn't know existed, all of them crammed into one room chatting and laughing and having drunken angry fistfights while we suffer the family togetherness from too far away. Then we crawl into the corner to cry and drink wine.

Thanksgiving, especially, can be bleak because it's a non-event here in pilgrim-free France. Christmas and New Year's are happy times because the city is full of fellow revelers but for Thanksgiving, you're on your own. You still have to go to work and you don't get the long weekend to eat cold turkey sandwiches and buy bigger pants.

Last year, determined to make Thanksgiving happen in the middle of Paris, we banded together with a group of fellow American ex-pats. New York Mom was in charge of procuring and cooking the bird. The butcher's eyes widened when she said she wanted to purchase the grandest turkey in all of France. He frowned and said the turkey she wanted was way too big for seven adults and a handful of children. She said, Duh, that was the point. He unhappily sold her the bird, probably assuming most of it would go to waste, but he doesn't know Americans like we know Americans. 

I was in charge of my specialty, midwestern cheesy potatoes--"midwestern" because the recipe calls for a can of cream of mushroom soup and a crunchy corn flake topping. I was also responsible for tracking down a jar of cranberry sauce. No one in our group liked cranberry sauce but we agreed it should still be present on the table, preferably plopped into a bowl and still in the shape of the can like mama used to make.... (more)

I confess, I'm having a hard time with this update. What can I say? Seattle is a juggernaut. It's kind of embarrassing; I'm not used to having a home team that wins. And yet, the Hydroponic Ducks are blowing the competition out of the water. What precisely is the proper etiquette for a beatdown?

As of this writing, the Word Count Scoreboard looks like so:
1. Seattle, Washington: 33,567,417
2. Los Angeles, California: 27,867,290
3. Germany, Europe: 26,704,975
4. London, England: 24,139,001
5. New York City, New York: 23,919,028

In our battle with Atlanta, Seattle continues to trounce A-Town, with an average word-count of 16,279 per Duck. The Atlanta Pandas trail at 14,057 each, giving Seattle a comfortable lead of 2,222. Seattle's still leading in donations, as well, pulling in about $2,500 over New York City's donors.

Of course, there are 11 days left in November, plenty of time for L.A. to catch up. In theory. It's possible, is all I'm saying. Los Angeles currently has 4,067 WriMos active and homed. Surely, they can produce more words than 3,319 Ducks? All those screenwriters? Oh. Um. Nevermind. [Ed.: See, this is where our terrible weather pays off! Enjoy the beach, losers!]

I can't say this staging of On the Town (at the 5th Ave through May 2) is a laugh riot--but the sight gags never stop coming and eventually they outpunch you. From the set's giant-poster backdrops of New York to the acting for the back row, this is not a show long on nuance. It's brassy, in your face, and intent on being broad as Broadway gets.

Director Bill Berry and choreographer Bob Richard ride a comedy two-speed: it's either high-speed Keystone Cops up there or outtakes from the Carol Burnett show. But there are also Jerome Robbins dances that are a dream of New York, its hustles and cons, carnival vitality, springtime breezes, and boozy nightclubs. And of course, there's the irrepressible score from a young Leonard Bernstein (this is part of Seattle's Bernstein fest).

While this production plays up what's dated about On the Town (the sailors are G-rated kids, the women kooky), the magic of "shore leave" in New York is immortal--unless you live there, you're always on a schedule, always wide-eyed, and always on a subway to...somewhere, you'll find out. The show's book and lyrics, by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, offer a wit in addition to yucks, but Berry is after low-hanging fruit, not forehead-furrowing double entendres. The acting is mostly delivery.... (more)

For the past week, the Northwest Film Forum has been running 45365, a "poetic" non-narrative feature about small-town Ohio that's more in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi than your standard documentary.  Now things stay small-town, but get a little more conventional at the NWFF with October Country.  The debut collaboration of filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, the film is a look at three generations of a dysfunctional family in Ilion, New York. 

These are small-town, working-class people, and it shows, with Mountain Dew and Newports acting as signifiers.  Grandfather Don never got over Vietnam and has shut out everyone else, including his wife Dottie; daughter Donna got knocked up young and dated a string of abusive men; oldest daughter Daneal followed in her mother's tracks, while her youngest, Desi, just thinks all the women in her family are "retarded," though it's not clear she'll escape the cycle either.  Meanwhile, Don's estranged sister Denise is a witch (literally) and spends most of her time talking to ghosts in the cemetery or decorating her house with unicorns and wizards (ditto).  What is never mentioned is that director Donal Mosher is Don and Dottie's son too.... (more)