It's Good To Be Back in Brooklyn, Baby

Thanks to RVK for hosting an excellent roof-top party on a Thursday night in the East Village. A painfully fun reminder of why New York is such a great town, and adding un-needed pressure to the current NYC vs. SF dilemma. Aside from the collection of friends and drinks on RVK's rooftop, the draws of the evening were a ridiculous-but-useful inflatable movie projection screen (which is available from both SkyMall and Walmart, I am told, depending on your shopping preferences - and which will be featured in the forthcoming First Annual Cold Spring Film Festival, I am assured) and, projected on to that screen, the break-dancing classic Breakin'. Also worth your time:

Take a moment to check out the website for Wafaa Bilal - a performance artist of Iraqi descent who is currently "performing" in a one-man show in Chicago, the concept for which involves him sitting in a room 24/7 while visitors to his website are able to control a paintgun that can be used to shoot him (or not) with paintballs. The gallery apparently rejected the original title of the piece "Shoot an Iraqi" in favor of "Domestic Tension," according to an NPR profile to which I was listening. The commentary, of course, on violence, the current Iraqi war, and the chasm of day-to-day experience between those of us, here, comfortably in America, and all those Iraqis and western soldiers in the midst of conflict in Iraq.

Slate.com's occasionally useful "Explainer" feature providing some provenance for the term "piss like a race horse." Conclusion: accurate.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told his supporters:

'to give away possessions they do not need such as an extra refrigerator because he only wants true socialists to be members of a new single party he is forming.

"Whoever has a fridge they do not need, put it out in the village square. Whoever has a truck, a fan or a cooker they do not need, give something away. Let's not be selfish. I demand you do it," Chavez said at a milk producing cooperative, in remarks released on Monday.

Chavez, who calls capitalism an evil, said he would donate $250,000 of his own money and added, "Let's see who follows the example."'

Between Venezuela and Brazil, politics in Latin America bears watching these days. For me, Chavez is at least entertaining, and it's worth remembering that not so long ago (i.e., through the end of the Cold War), the non-aligned movement was a large, if not always coherent, bloc of countries that are ever-increasing in both population and prominence in global politics. Also worth wondering is where a self-proclaimed socialist gets an extra $250K to donate...

Watched a surprisingly-full matinee show of "Knocked Up," the new Judd Apatow movie, in a suburban theater in South County, RI last week (and also, coincidentally, re-watched half of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" this morning). There are some definite pleasures to the movie - the twenty-something stoner-bud vibe of the lead character Ben and his friends, Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd's occasionally-too-true psychedelic stroll through Las Vegas, Paul Rudd, in general, whose wry/bitter characters are wincingly great (see the odd and under-appreciated "Two Nights" if your netflix queue is sufficiently small), Judd Apatow's children, and, of course, the featuring of three attractive and funny women in lead and supporting roles. But, all that said, the movie is amusing at best, a little long, and probably deserving of a rental more than anything else. As an addendum, Dana Stevens at Slate.com takes on the non-issue of abortion as a logical plot point in the movie.