Manhattan City Walk #1

Last Saturday, my boyfriend Matthew and I walked our first of several planned city walks, exploring the neighborhoods and parks of the Upper West Side. We mapped our 12.5 mile walk with Google Earth, and the composition below features some photographs I took along the way. Click on the map for an expanded view.


I will post again with pictures from our next Manhattan adventure!

April's Literary Pursuits on the F Train

Here are another ten cliff-hangers being consumed this month by literary enthusiasts on the F train during the commute between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Enjoy the sneak peek!

2666
The novel is divided into five parts and begins with the adventures and love affairs of a small group of scholars dedicated to the work of Benno von Archimboldi, a reclusive German novelist. They trace the writer to the Mexican border town of Santa Teresa, but there the trail runs dry, and it isn't until the final section that readers actually learn about Benno. (Publishers Weekly)




American Buffalo
"The finest American playwright of his generation" (Sunday Times) A junk shop. Three small-time crooks plot to carry out the midnight robbery of a coin collection. In the hours leading up to the heist, friendship becomes the victim in a conflict between loyalty and business."This play is a parable about the US - not in the journalistic way but quietly, stealthily, with all the rich interior organisation of a true work of art" (Observer)



An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
The delightfully dark story of Sam Pulsifer, the accidental arsonist and murderer narrator who leads readers through a multilayered, flame-filled adventure about literature, lies, love and life. The blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, story and reality become the landscape for amusing and provocative adventures that begin when, at age 18, Sam accidentally torches the Emily Dickinson Homestead, killing two people. (Publishers Weekly)



The Book of Night Women
Powerful and eloquently narrated in a lilting Jamaican patois that at once underscores and eerily conflicts with the disturbing images of violence and degradation. Though the novel is filled with familiar figures -- dissolute masters, jealous mistresses, house and field slaves -- James never lets them devolve into cliches or ciphers. (Bookmarks Magazine)




The Color of Water
The need to clarify his racial identity prompted the author to penetrate his veiled and troubled family history. Ruth McBride Jordan's grim upbringing in an abusive environment is left behind when she moves to Harlem, marries a black man, converts to Christianity, and co-founds a Baptist congregation with her husband. The courage and tenacity shown by this twice-widowed mother who manages to raise 12 children are remarkable. (Library Journal)



Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir
Auslander, a magazine writer, describes his Orthodox Jewish upbringing as theological abuse in this sardonic, twitchy memoir that waits for the other shoe to drop from on high. Flitting haphazardly between expectant-father neuroses and childhood neuroses Auslander labors mightily to channel Philip Roth with cutting, comically anxious spiels lamenting his off-kilter family and temptations of all things non-Kosher. (Publishers Weekly)




Hammer of God
As an asteroid named "Kali" hurtles toward earth on a collision course that spells the end to life on the planet. Meanwhile, a lone spaceship armed with a weapon to alter the asteroid's path attempts to carry out its perilous mission--unaware that others are simultaneously working for earth's destruction. (Library Journal)





Leviathan
This is one of the few books in western thought that cannot receive enough praise. It is all at the same time a compilation of classical and medieval thought, a biting commentary and critique of 17th century Europe (mostly England), an exploration of philosophy as science, and the first truly modern work of political philosophy. (C.N. Gallimore)




Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
"[Flannery O'Connor] was not just the best 'woman writer' of [her] time and place; she expressed something secret about America, called 'the South,' with that transcendent gift for expressing the real spirit of a culture that is conveyed by those writers . . . who become nothing but what they see. Completeness is one word for it: relentlessness [and] unsparingness would be others." (New York Times)




The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. This reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn't just some relic from the bad old days. It's alive and well in contemporary society. (Amazon)

Literary Pursuits on the F Train: Part Deux

My last post featured 10 books that have recently engrossed F train readers during their morning commutes on the Manhattan-bound subway out of Brooklyn. I was considering making this a monthly feature (and perhaps I may still), but a wait of three more weeks proved too long as I was unable to resist the temptation of discovering new works of literature, more-or-less under my nose.

As subtly as possible to avoid the inevitable dirty looks from the eavesdropping-phobic, I've squinted and strained this week to read the distant titles of novels that my fellow commuters have brought along for their rides. Many are the unsurprising, current New York Times Bestsellers, while others are unexpected and compelling finds that may just inspire additions to my 2010 booklist.

I spy with my eye ... something old, something new, something borrowed from the Brooklyn Public Library, something blue ...

Boomsday
It's the end of the world as we know it, especially if bloggers are setting the national agenda. In his latest novel, Buckley imagines a not-so-distant future when America teeters on the brink of economic disaster. Buckley's heroine is "a morally superior 29-year-old PR chick" who blogs at night about the impending Boomsday budget crisis. And her name? Cassandra. "Cassandra is a metaphor for catastrophe prediction. It's what I do." (Publishers Weekly)



The Conscience of a Liberal
In this New York Times bestseller, Paul Krugman, today's most widely read economist, examines the past eighty years of American history. Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has created his finest book to date, a "stimulating manifesto" offering "a compelling historical defense of liberalism and a clarion call for Americans to retake control of their economic destiny" (Publishers Weekly).



Digital Fortress
On page 1, the protagonist, lately dismissed from The National Security Agency (NSA), drops dead of a supposed heart attack. Though dead, he enjoys a dramaturgical afterlife in the form of his computer program. Digital Fortress creates unbreakable codes, which could render useless NSA's code-cracking supercomputer called TRANSLTR, but the deceased programmer slyly embossed a decryption key on a ring he wore. Pursuit of this ring is the engine of the plot. (Gilbert Taylor)



The Fountainhead
On the surface, The Fountainhead is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, and the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence. (Amazon)



Four to Score
Half-Hungarian, half-Italian and all-Jersey, Trenton's best-known bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, is a raucous delight. When Maxine Nowicki, charged with stealing her boyfriend's car, skips her court appearance, she's fair game to be hauled in. Before the case is over, Stephanie will invade an Atlantic City casino with her intrepid allies: Grandma Mazur, Lula, and Sally, a seven-foot transvestite rock singer. Although Stephanie is the bounty hunter, she's the only one who isn't armed. (Publishers Weekly)



The Giant's House
A platonic and achingly poignant love affair between a young man who suffers from gigantism and a librarian who is 14 years his senior is the focus of this remarkable debut novel. Narrator Peggy Cort, spinster librarian, first becomes aware of James Sweatt when he comes into the library with his grade-school class, already 6'2" at age 11. Peggy finds herself drawn to the gentle, lonely young man, because he fills a void in her own life and because of James's loving but eccentric family. (Publishers Weekly)



The Savage Detectives
The major work from the great Chilean-born novelist Bolaño. In early 1970s Mexico City, young poets Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima start a small, erratically militant literary movement, the Visceral Realists, named for another, semimythical group started in the 1920s by the nearly forgotten poet Cesárea Tinajero. Bolaño fashions an engrossing lost world of youth and utopian ambition, as particular and vivid as it is sad and uncontainable. (Publishers Weekly)



A Thousand Splendid Suns
Hosseini's riveting story is an in-depth exploration of Afghan society in the three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war, and Taliban cruelty. He impels us to empathize with and admire those most victimized by Afghan history and culture—women. Mariam, a 15-year-old bastard, is married off to 40-year-old Rasheed, who abuses her brutally, especially after she has several miscarriages. At 60, Rasheed takes in 14-year-old Laila, and the two wives form a strange alliance. (Publishers Weekly)



The Wasp Factory
Few novelists have ever burst onto the literary scene with as much controversy as Iain Banks in 1984. The Wasp Factory is distinguished by an authentically felt and deftly written first-person style, delicious dark humor, a sense of the surreal, and a serious examination of the psyche of a childhood psychopath. Most readers will find that they sympathize with Frank, despite his three murders. It's a classic of contemporary horror. (Fiona Webster)




The Year of Living Biblically
What would it require for a person to live all the commandments of the Bible for an entire year? That is the question that animates this hilarious, thought-provoking memoir. Jacobs didn't just keep the Bible's better-known moral laws, but also the obscure and unfathomable ones. Throughout his journey, he is a generous and thoughtful participant, lacing his story with funny cultural commentary as well as nuanced insights into the impossible task of biblical literalism. (Publishers Weekly)

A Commuter's Library: Literary Pursuits on the F Train

The Manhattan-bound F train out of Brooklyn has been sucking lately. There's more delays than ever with severe overcrowding during rush hour, and best of all, if the proposed MTA fare hikes go through, we B'klyners - and all other NYC subway riders - may soon have to pay 25% more for our unlimited Metrocards, raising the monthly bill from $81 to a sickening $103.

Mother $%&#s!

But we F train commuters are trying to make the best of it. Those of us lucky enough to get seats (and those able to stand and balance a book without impaling other riders), often engage in a little literary escapism to make it through the daily drudgery. In addition to the staples of NYC transit: The New Yorker, The Bible, and the Twilight series (in that order), F train commuters indulge in a veritable cornucopia of literary pursuits, from the trashy to the classy.

Some of last week's riveting reads:


The Billionaire in Penthouse B
A rich, powerful loner, Gage fit the description of the man who may have information about the mysterious demise of Jacinda Endicott's sister. Which was why Jacinda had abandoned her old life and taken a job at Gage's penthouse as his live-in maid. By day, she snooped for clues about her employer; by night, she fought her fatal attraction to the sexy, secretive billionaire. Her heart told her Gage was innocent; her head warned her otherwise. Which would she listen to? (product description)



Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Some of the 23 stories in Wallace's bold, uneven, bitterly satirical second collection seem bound for best-of-the-year anthologies. In the "interviews," that make up the title story, one man after another, speaking to a woman whose voice we never hear, reveals the pathetic creepiness of his romantic conquests and fantasies. These stories, at their best, show an erotic savagery and intellectual depth that will confound, fascinate and disturb the most unsuspecting reader as well as devoted fans. (Publishers Weekly)



The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman has created a charming allegory of childhood. Although the book opens with a scary scene as a family is stabbed to death, the story quickly moves into more child-friendly storytelling. The sole survivor of the attack, an 18-month-old baby, escapes his crib and toddles to a nearby graveyard. Quickly recognizing that the baby is orphaned, the graveyard's ghostly residents adopt him, name him Nobody, and allow him to live in their tomb. (Heidi Broadhead)



How Soccer Explains the World
Foer, a New Republic editor, scores a game-winning goal with this analysis of the interchange between soccer and the new global economy. The subtitle is a bit misleading, though: he doesn't really use soccer to develop a theory; instead, he focuses on how examining soccer in different countries allows us to understand how international forces affect politics and life around the globe. The book is full of colorful reporting, strong characters and insightful analysis. (Publishers Weekly)



The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan writes about how our food is grown -- what it is, in fact, that we are eating. The first section discusses industrial farming; the second, organic food, both as big business and on a small farm; and the third, what it is like to hunt and gather food for oneself. Each section culminates in a meal - a cheeseburger from McDonald's; roast chicken and vegetables from Whole Foods; grilled chicken and corn from a sustainable farm; and, finally, a meal foraged from the wild. (Washington Post)



Petropolis
This debut novel traces Russian-Jewish Sasha Goldberg's screwball coming-of-age and search for her long-ago disappeared father. After Sasha is accepted into a local, cash-strapped art school in the gloomy Siberian town of Asbestos, she becomes pregnant and has a daughter, whom she is forced to leave behind to attend an art school in Moscow. Sasha begins scheming her way to America and soon is on a plane to Phoenix, Ariz., as a 17-year-old mail-order bride. (Publishers Weekly)



The Pitchfork 500
Named the "best site for music criticism on the web" by The New York Times Magazine, Pitchforkmedia.com has become the leading independent resource for music journalism, the place people turn to find out what's happening in new music. In The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present, Pitchfork offers up their take on the 500 best songs of the past three decades.




The Secret Supper
Set in the late 15th century, the book revolves around a papal inquisitor's investigation into Leonardo da Vinci's alleged heresies. After receiving a series of cryptic messages from "the Soothsayer," who warns that "art can be employed as a weapon," the Secretariat of Keys of the Papal States dispatches Father Agostino Leyre on a twofold mission to Milan: identify the Soothsayer and discover what, if any, messages da Vinci is hiding in the painting. (Publishers Weekly)



Watchmen
The story concerns a group called the Crimebusters and a plot to kill and discredit them. Moore's characterization is as sophisticated as any novel's as he investigates issues of power and control, propelling the comic genre forward and making "adult" comics a reality. The intelligent social and political commentary, the structure of the story itself, the fine pace of the writing, and its humanity mean that Watchmen keeps its crown as the best the genre has yet produced. (Mark Thwaite)




The Wordy Shipmates
Essayist and public radio regular Vowell revisits America's Puritan roots in this witty exploration of the ways in which our country's present predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630 journey of several key English colonists and members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Gracefully interspersing her history lesson with personal anecdotes, Vowell offers reflections that are both amusing and tender. (Publishers Weekly)

The Producer's List - Part Two

This is a continuation of The Producer's List - Part One, a bullet-point list of big and small details that might get overlooked, particularly by independent filmmakers working in major cities like NYC.

Regardless of the size of the production, there's always the chance that some important detail will be overlooked, unless the producers have their eyes open and their toilet brushes in hand, for when the on-location bathrooms are too disgusting for the cast and crew to use and the unpaid PAs are all off running errands. Suck it up, producers, and soldier on.

• A responsible film crew leaves a location in slightly better condition than the location was found. When on location, be sure to have plenty of trash bags and trash cans. Most importantly, know where the trash needs to be taken out and which days the trash is picked up, and any other trash collection restrictions that may apply.

• When shooting on location, know how much electricity is available - not just for the film lights, but for everything that might need to be plugged in. Prop lights. Heaters. Air conditioners. Fans. Battery chargers. Lights for the green room. Blow dryers. Coffee makers. Never forget the coffee makers. All the electricity in the world won't be enough if there's a shortage of outlets and extension cords.

• When shooting on location (especially in older buildings), make sure that the electricity has been properly grounded. If there's no record of the building's electrical history, have an electrician or someone qualified check out the wiring. If faulty electricity causes any of the film equipment to short circuit, most likely that will be deemed neglect by the filmmaker and insurance will not cover the loss.

• The general advice is never to feed pizza to your crew. Never say never, of course, for sometimes pizza makes excellent, quick comfort food after a long day of shooting. The most important thing to remember is balance in your catering and craft services. For every bagel, have cereal or fruit as an alternate. For every chocolate bar, have a vegetable or cheese platter. For every cup of coffee, have twice as many bottles of water. Find out in advance the dietary needs of your cast and crew. If there are any vegans or vegetarians, lactose-intolerants, diabetics, or people with severe food allergies, plan accordingly.

• Check the weather religiously before the shoot begins, and then every morning afterwards (keeping note of the weather is usually an assistant director's responsibility when preparing the call sheets). Have alternate shooting schedules if weather conditions prevent the exterior scenes from being shot first. Be prepared with plenty of tarps, umbrellas, and plastic raincoats should foul weather spring up unexpectedly.

• When shooting on weekends or in particularly isolated areas, know what's available to you and when. Most rental houses are closed on the weekend, though some may have a weekend emergency contact. Local businesses may have shorter hours or may not be open at all. Film is hard to come by on the weekends, but especially hard to find anywhere outside of the major film metropolises. Have an emergency film backup available to you or plan accordingly and don't run out.
  

• Have everyone's number stored in your phone or at least immediately on hand at all times. EVERYONE. Cast, crew, AAA, location owners, rental houses, taxi cab services, any emergency contacts other than 9-1-1, the state department, etc. You never know what may come up.
  

• Have plenty of actor release forms available and at least one person in charge of collecting signatures, from the lead actors to the background extras, to the random passersby who happened to stumble into the last shot. Do it before you have to track individuals down or resort to blurring out faces in wide shots. Make sure that all legal points are covered in the releases and that a minor has a legal guardian signing in his or her place. Don't leave any room for a lawsuit if you can help it.

Well, that's all for now. Though there's plenty more to remember, so be on the lookout for The Producer's List - Part Three!

The Producer's List - Part One

A producer's responsibilities are many and varied, regardless of what medium they are working in, whether they are producing a film, television series, or an art exhibit. Producers must macro- and micro-manage, overseeing the big details - assembling the people, the places, the how and the when - and they must also look out for the small detail specifics, planning for every potential Murphy's Law disaster, allowing nothing to slip through the cracks along the way.

From conception to completion, a producer's responsibilities are all-encompassing.

While attending NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, majoring in film and television production with a minor in producing, I produced a number of student films. Through my varied experiences, and often thanks to trial and error, I've gathered up quite an extensive list of the dos and don'ts of independent film production, the must-not-forgets for anyone who finds themselves as the head of production on a shoot where if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. Many of these bullet points are especially paramount when producing in a big city like New York with more rules and regulations and parking tickets than item lines in the budget.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that part one of this list has to do largely with transportation concerns. Driving and parking in NYC on a normal basis is a bitch, but dealing with the needs, size, and limitations of production vehicles on top of everything else is a bloody nightmare.

• When working with oversized production vehicles, from cargo vans to 24' cube trucks, be aware of the weight, height and width restrictions on city streets, bridges, and tunnels. If your vehicle is 12' tall, you need an alternate route not involving the 11' high tunnel. Do the math.
  

• Keep a list of all of the parking lots or garages able to accommodate your vehicle and know their hours of operation and restrictions. Be sure to make reservations in advance if the lots are likely to fill up fast. Have plenty of cash on hand - parking is often more costly than the vehicle rental.
  

• In NYC, commercial vehicles are not allowed to park on residential streets overnight. As far as parking tickets are concerned, a vehicle is commercial if it has a commercial license plate or visible lettering on the vehicle's sides, advertising a service. Even if you rent a U-Haul truck for a personal reason, the truck is considered commercial. If your move (or movie) takes more than one day, be aware of legal parking around your residence.

• It's near-impossible to find legal street-side parking for a compact car in Manhattan, much less legal parking for production vehicles. It's a good idea to pad your production vehicle budget to account for the price of parking and gas - but also the expense of parking tickets. You're bound to get at least one. Those meter maids are merciless.

• Map Quest driving directions are misleading, especially estimates for how long it actually takes to get anywhere within city limits. Always account for rush hour traffic, road construction, traffic accidents, getting lost, and finding parking. And then some.

• Leaving anything of value in production vehicles overnight or unattended is taking a big risk. Insurance won't cover theft or damage deemed to be the result of neglect (aka: leaving shit in the van), so if your equipment in stolen, you'll likely be in for more than the deductible, but for the replacement value of everything that's ended up on the underground Panasonic, Kodak, and Arri black market.
  

• While the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, & Broadcasting can secure permits for parking and for shooting on city-owned property for your production (all you need is insurance and permission), the smaller your production, the fewer parking laws you are able to ignore and the less traffic you can interfere with - pedestrian or vehicular. Parking permits are only available for production vehicles, not for personal use.