Something Cool to Check Out This Weekend: Strands

This just came to my attention today and it sounds pretty neat. Per the artist’s web site:

Strands, a video installation by Dillon de Give, on view from 8/31 – 9/10/07, is located at points on Manhattan and Meserole Aves in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NYC. The project seeks to illustrate a taxonomy of life and time on a local as well as galactic scale. The title of the piece refers to the subject of the videos: groups of multicolored filaments observed under the force of moving air or wind, and alludes to string theory and the romance of deriving an explanation of rules that govern existence under all circumstances.

Individual videos are unexpectedly set on monitors in neighborhood establishments (a laundromat, an electronics store, and a florist). The establishments serve as a lens for the work and the work, reminiscent of Rorschach inkblots, creates a psychologically subjective pocket within the establishment. Dillon de Give is a video artist, playwright, and filmmaker living in Greenpoint.

Follows is a breakdown of where and when you can view these installations with directions:

Strands 0
The origin of the cycle
Explosion of species from point zero
Wash and Dry Laundromat
120 Meserole Ave, 7:30am – 8:30pm daily.

Strands 1
The present confusion in time
Violence for décor
M T V Super Sound Electronics & Appliances
747 Manhattan Ave, 11am – 8pm M-Sat. Sunday 11am – 6pm.

Strands 2
The future seed
Consciousness hidden in discipline
Greenpoint Floral Co.
703 Manhattan Ave. 9am – 7pm M-Sat., Sunday 11am – 4pm.

I think it is incredibly cool that three local businesses volunteered to participate in this installation. I will definitely check it out …and you should too! For more details, click on either of the above images and you will be directed to Dillon de Give’s web site, implausibot.com.

Miss Heather

P.S.: Those of you with less conventional tastes should swing by the junk shop and check out my latest opus, The Twollar.

As you can clearly see, it has been well received.

The Pay Phones of Greenpoint

Yesterday I found an injured pay phone that stand head(less) and shoulders above its peers.

The duct tape is a nice touch. Given the propensity most people have for talking at each other nowadays, this device may very well be cutting edge technology. It is certainly a must-have for CB enthusiasts. 10-4.

Another pay phone I found of interest is located on McGuinness Boulevard.

Gravity isn’t what’s keeping that Dunkin Donuts napkin on the receiver. It’s adhered to it.

Miss Heather

Anyone want a vermin-free couch?

If so, head over to Greenpoint Avenue (between Manhattan Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard) and pick it up.

On top of being 100% free (no cash money required), it also purports to be bereft of bedbugs. WHAT A DEAL!

Miss Heather

The Sensuous Greenpointer

Although I do my most to keep away from the following locality, I would like to tender my sincerest condolences to the fine people of Park Slope regarding the loss of Maggie Moo’s. One woman’s (READ: MY) vision of a brightly lit (and very hot) crotchling-ridden hellhole is another woman’s paradise.

If it’s any consolation, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory over on Commercial Street has yet to open— much to the consternation of my ice cream-craving taste buds. Good thing we have The Corner Frenzy on Huron Street (which is quite delicious and affordable, by the way). But I digress…

Every cloud has a silver brown lining… and sometimes it is quite delicious! As I discovered on West Street today.

Keep a stiff upper lip my fellow Brooklynites to the south! You may have lost your ice cream venue of choice, but chocolate topping can be poured on other things. Use your imagination.

But please use protection, the last thing your ‘hood needs is more fucking strollers.

Miss Heather

For Greenpointers Only!

I found this flyer on Franklin Street last night. I have since sent an email requesting the submission requirements; when I receive them I will post them on here New York Shitty. So those of you who are interested should starting thinking about what you are going to enter! I have already decided which piece I am going to submit. When most of your oeuvre is considered obscene (by most people) the decision-making process becomes pretty simple.

Miss Heather

The Greenpoint Hotel, Part III

Let’s review. So far we have learned:

1. The delightful place we call the Greenpoint Hotel was once known as the Edwards Hotel.
2. Not unlike its current incarnation, the Edwards Hotel was a shit hole where…
   1. one could find himself being chloroformed and robbed on a New Year’s morning or
   2. one could find him/herself invited to a hitherto unplanned meeting with his maker. Possibly with a little help from the wife of the proprietor, the ever-delightful Mrs. Edwards.

Conclusion: this was not and is not a nice place. What’s more, you needn’t check into this roach motel to check out of this mortal coil. Merely standing in front of this establishment will suffice, as I learned from the November 6, 1921 edition of the New York Times.

And this, my friends, completes the trio of Greenpoint Hotel goodness I have culled from newspaper archives for your reading pleasure. What will next week’s installment of Greenpoint glory from the days of yore be? Even I don’t know the answer to this question…

YET!

Miss Heather

Something For All The Ladies in The House…

I found the above item at work recently. Once I determined what it was (a pair of swimming trunks) I IMMEDIATELY placed it behind the counter. Such a piece of apparel is unfit for Greenpoint consumption. No one— and I mean NO ONE who lives in the Garden Spot should be allowed to wear this. In fact, I am not even going to place it in the dumpster when I throw it away. To do so would assure that I will see them gracing some disgusting old homeless man’s ASS the next day. *shudder*

Yup folks, if you’re looking for the kind of man who can wear a pair of aqua blue Versace trunks and retain so much as a solitary ounce of dignity go somewhere else. You ain’t gonna find him here. As my gal pal Lisa over at Found in Brooklyn recently opined:

GP (Greenpoint) will have a serious influx of the type of people if you are like me you will despise…. I think the word yuppie is due for a comeback in a big way, but now they disguise themselves as “hipsters” which makes it even more rage inducing….

How very true. So I emailed her back and told her:

It’s happening alright. There used to be good eye candy here, you know. Now all you have are filthy hipsters (seriously they SMELL BAD) and those chaps. Last weekend I was relegated to chatting up a rockabilly dyke at the local record store. The only cute (and CLEAN) men left here are not men at all. They’re women.

I’m not trying put the moves on anyone or anything, but c’mon.

Sadly, most of the good looking men who graced my corner of the Garden Spot have long since left. Thankfully, I found the following piece of promotional material this weekend and it consoled me in my state of loss.

I do not profess to read or speak Polish. However, the above item does not require such literacy: it communicates via the International language of “Himbo”.

I am seriously tempted to attend this event. While not usually my kind of thing, the prospect of watching a horde of horny Polish broads ogling male exotic dancers strikes me as being too hilarious to miss.

Miss Heather

Drunk Spotting on Green Street

I think it’s safe to wager that someone on my block might not. After leaving Nick Zedd’s film retrospective at East Coast Aliens last night my buddy Rachael and I encountered a 20-something woman lying on the sidewalk at Green and Franklin Streets. Two people were standing over her. We walked over.

Me: What’s her problem?
Guy: I don’t know. She’s drunk or something.
Me: Why don’t you reach into her purse, get her cellphone and call her keeper?
Guy: I am her boyfriend.
Me: Oh, so you ARE her keeper. Good luck.

That’s when we walked off and, curiously enough, the woman got up and walked home with her boyfriend.

This woman seemed a little too coordinated to be drunk. I imagine she was perpetrating some prank or “guerilla art” project. If so, it was a crappy one. She was hardly convincing as a drunk person passed out on the sidewalk. I should know; I have seen people slumbering on the sidewalks here many, many times. Still do.

Once, back in 2002, my Rachael and I were walking back to my old apartment at one or two in the morning. When we rounded the corner we found a guy passed out on the stairs of (what I presume to be) his house. He was splayed out on his back, flat as a board, car keys still in hand. This chap almost made it home. ALMOST.

He was missing his shoes. I guess someone stole them. The next morning he was gone. I wonder if he remembered what he did yesterday?

Miss Heather

P.S.: In related news, I am proud to announce that Rev. Jen’s Lower East Side Troll Museum received a very special addition last night courtesy of yours truly.

I have found this stunningly-wrecked troll (who I have named “Gimpy the Greenpoint Troll”) on Greenpoint Avenue a week ago. As soon as I saw it I knew her museum had to have it. Not only was Jen pleased with my donation, but she said a special exhibition of Brooklyn trolls was in the works. I can hardly wait! There ain’t a troll in this fine boro of Kings that can top Gimpy. Game over!