City Pianos

Just like in old Bugs Bunny cartoons--



city pianos go flying--



into upper story windows.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy 20th Die Yuppie Scum

Image
You might say that Friday night's protest of super-gentrification in the East Village was also a celebration of Die Yuppie Scum's 20th birthday . In trying to trace the roots of this rallying cry of rage, I found its earliest recorded use goes back to the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square Park , when it was hurled at the new residents of the Christodora House (along with bricks), painted on the walls of their controversial building, and propelled into the mainstream lexicon. By 1989, the phrase had made it onto T-shirts and was being spray-painted everywhere. It is currently enjoying a resurgence . How appropriate then, that this weekend's angry group of East Villagers, chanting "Die Yuppie Scum" as they marched through the neighborhood's streets, should end up on the doorstep of Christodora, face to face with the enemy, where they found their fiercest opposition of the long march. But first let me rewind, back to the beginning of the night. It started...
Read more

How the Cupcake Crumbled

Image
Made giddy by the recent deluge of SATC-spanking media coverage (see end of story for links), let's trace it back--not as far back this time as Bushnell and Star's fateful meeting at Bowery Bar, we've already covered that . No, let's go back to a seemingly more harmless moment in the year 2000 , to a few seconds frosted in pin The Villager points the way, reflecting, "After Sarah Jessica Parker ate a creamy retro cupcake on Sex and the City at a beloved local landmark, The Magnolia Bakery, the tour buses began circling. The lines outside the tiny bakery swelled into queues stretching around the corner. Soon, upscale clothing retailer Marc Jacobs, salivating over the youthful crowds, rented a shop right across the street." don't do it! stop! And here's our smoking gun: “Our goal was to take advantage of the huge concentration of young people who flooded into the area, especially with the ‘Sex and the City’ show,” said Debbie Lee, a Marc Jacobs...
Read more

The Joneses Are Here

Image
I've been puzzling as to why yunnies hate mom-and-pops so very, very much. I was reading this post by EV Grieve in which he quotes an online review of an Irish pub that came down to make way for a new luxury tower. The reviewer writes: " I hope places like this close down soon: We are all working on building a better downtown . I bought a 1.5 million dollar condo around the block from this place. I stopped in one weekday during lunch (i was off.) The place had 3 patrons at the bar, all of which looked worse then the other. The decor is lacking, the floors dirty, and the food was just ok. This place may be decent for someone who does not like finer things ..." And I wondered, as I have many times when reading similar commentary, what is this about? Why do yunnies feel such intense hatred of harmless, dumpy old places? The hatred seems deeply personal and expresses itself in a wish to destroy. It's one thing to say, "I don't like this place so I won't go ...
Read more