On Saturday night, a blackout darkened Manhattan's West Side for several hours. But that didn't stop cast members from several Broadway shows, and Carnegie Hall, from performing. Not in their scheduled stage performances but impromptu ones outside on the sidewalks.
The New York Times:
The electricity failed about an hour before curtain for most shows, meaning the casts and crew were already in place and audiences were on their way.
Some lucky patrons were treated to brief sidewalk songs while producers tried to figure out whether the lights might return in time to salvage Saturday night — generally the most lucrative night of the week for Broadway.
The shows got canceled, but "the show must go on," as they say:
Read the rest
Josh, one of my inbox zine's readers, made this. He wrote, "For a very long time I’ve wanted to build a giant geodesic dome filled with fake grass in lower Manhattan. This August it happened."
His piece is called dusk-space and it's an immersive synthetic environment meant to "recreate the experience of being in a remote country field at dusk." Here are some words about it from its statement (emphasis mine):
Urban life is completely disconnected from natural experience. There is no night in New York City, only an artificial dusk that lasts until dawn...
Everything about the experience is designed to evoke the sensations and feelings of the real thing, while always being obviously and unequivocally manufactured.
Visitors arriving at the dome will notice the sweet and clean smell of Premium Grade Fresh Cut Grass Fragrance Oil as they walk past the stands of 36-40" Tall Natural Meadow Grass in Green. The diffuse sounds of Ambient Cricket Loop will fill the air. Entering the dome, they will feel the unmatched softness of the SYNAugustineX47 dense thatch below their feet. Looking up, they will see the sharp twinkling of the Ultrabright White 5mm Untinted Non-Diffused LED stars above.
I hope that everyone who comes will enjoy the simple pleasure of lying in a field on a warm summer night looking up at the stars, even if it is only a simulation...
Finally, I hope a few will stop to think about the meaning of authenticity of experience in our technologically advancing artificial world.
Read the rest
FilmSpektakel takes hyperlapse to the next level with A Taste of New York, a frenetic and beautifully shot homage to Manhattan. Read the rest
What's a driver to do to kill time between rideshare gigs? For Noah Forman, the answer was trying to set a record for most consecutive green lights. He hits about 240 green lights in a row in this video.
This seems much safer and more fun than the knucklehead who set the fastest lap around Manhattan, an honor that landed him in jail:
• Noah hits 240 green lights. (Vimeo / Shawn Swetsky) Read the rest
Allison Meier reports on the progress in uncovering a gorgeous Max Spivak midcentury stained-glass mosaic that was found in March hidden behind an aluminum facade. Read the rest
Boing Boing reader Giant Eye, aka Matthew Borgatti, says, "Here's a sneak peek of something I'm working on for the Transmetropolitan Art Book. It's on the corner of W 26th st and 8th in Manhattan. If you live in the city you should come and see it before the installation gets graff'd over."
For those who aren't familiar: Transmetropolitan is a series of cyberpunk graphic novels written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson, published by DC Comics. Read the rest
