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Your up-to-the-minute guide to New York City events, restaurants, bars, nightlife, ticket alerts, NSFW ephemera and cat photos.
Fitness Face-Off: splits (sessions 23-28)
Wed Aug 1
Oy. I've been a bad blogger of late. Not as derelict in my stretching but almost. Which leads me to why I am particularly ebullient today: I am making mad progress. Without doing very much.
For the past couple of weeks I've primarily been working with Britt, who is just about to pass her 400s and land a spot on the teaching schedule (get her while you can at $45ish an hour). The reason that I'm particularly impressed with Re:AB's apprentices is that they're perfectionists and devoted to the ideals of Pilates, but competent and confident enough to modify exercises and/or add stretches that might not be part of the system. I guess it's that they all subscribe to a big-picture ideology and clearly understand the intricacies of the body. They can look at me, determine what's going on and respond. Priceless. So anyway, see Britt—because she's awesome. And she always gives little back rubs while she's bending you in two.
So back to my euphoria: I've gone about four times in the...
Save a Blue Seat for me
Wed Aug 1
When do we get to sit in those blue seats, anyways? We announced the opening of this chick-friendly LES sports bar back in mid-July, but it's still. not. open. It seems that TV is the source of the problem (ain't it always?). When we inquired about the source of the delay, the rep for the bar let it slip us that "one of the big ones" had been stolen.
We called minutes later to confirm the details, only to be told that there had been no theft at all (huh?). This version of the story has it that three of the televisions had arrived cracked, and inspection can't happen unless the TVs are in place, and booze can't be sold until the certificate of occupancy has been granted. You connect the dots.
According to the owner, the joint will be open by August 9 at the latest, but the rep says Monday 6 could be the day. LES sports fans, cross your fingers for ol' Blue Seats come Monday.
Midnight mass
Tue Jul 31
Good news for bargain-hunting night owls: Century 21's Manhattan location (22 Cortlandt St between Broadway and Church St, 212-227-9092) will be extending its hours for the first time ever on Thursday 2 from 8:30pm to midnight. According to its press release, the designer markdown mecca is also touting the new tag line "Fashion worth fighting for," so get ready for a battle royal with tourists when the clock strikes 11:59pm.
Bye bye, Grand Hyatt, hello (again), Avery Fisher
Mon Jul 30
Ever since the James Beard Foundation's 2004 corruption scandal, the culinary nonprofit has appeared to do everything in its power to distance itself from its soiled image. The errant president Leonard F. Pickell Jr. was replaced with the International Culinary Center's Dorothy Cann Hamilton; publicity group M. Young Communications, which handled the foundation's awards ceremony for years, was replaced with PR firm Bullfrog & Baum; and the stale Grand Hyatt, site of so many Beard galas, was ditched in favor of the majestic Avery Fisher Hall in 2007.
After all of that upheaval, it looks like the new traditions are taking hold. This morning, the Beard Foundation sent TONY an e-mail to save the date for next year's gala, to be held at Avery Fisher for the second time, on June 8, 2008. Could this be the first nail in the coffin of turbulence at the JBF? TBD.
Greener grass
Sun Jul 29
One of the better things about the introduction of a new video format is how it allows companies to fix things they got wrong the first time. Case in point: Lionsgate's terrific new Blu-ray edition of Weeds' first season, which presents the Mary-Louise Parker--as-pot-peddlin'-MILF dramedy in widescreen—as it was seen on Showtime—rather than with the sides chopped off the picture, as with the DVD released last year. Oh yeah, it looks pretty fantastic, too.
Panoramic might not seem vital where a dialogue-heavy series like this one is concerned. But Weeds is uncommonly cinematic for a quasisitcom, and the detailed set design—one of many reasons its portrayal of suburbia is so convincing—took a definite hit on the season-one discs. The Blu-ray version compensates ten times over—above and beyond the widescreen presentation, there's an almost supernatural sharpness to the image that takes a little getting used to. On Blu-ray discs, material shot with HDTV in mind generally tends to...
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