Tag: event

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Enjoyed

McSweeney’s vs. They Might Be Giants

Here’s as much as I can remember about the NYC debut of McSweeney’s vs. TMBG, performed last night at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room – which is oddly not located at what you would traditionally think of as Lincoln Center; it’s in fact in the Time Warner Center. I digress.

The evening started with TMBG performing Bangs. I am immediately struck by how fantastic the acoustics are in this room.

The host for the night – tragically, I have forgotten his name, as he was not listed on the program unlike the author who was filling in for Dave Eggers – started us off with some light humor. He was funny, and self-deprecating, and I am kicking myself for not recalling his name. He was an excellent host. (EDIT SIX YEARS AND NINE MONTHS AFTER THE FACT: it was John Hodgman, of course.)

On came David Rakoff, retelling a long essay about his experiences at a tibetian weekend session hosted by Steven Segal. His delivery reminded me of Augusten Buroughs (not a bad thing), and I thought he had a particular gift for mixing the humor in the situation with the occasional moments of pure tragedy that he felt. Excellent author, and I may have to pick up his book(s).

He was accompanied, briefly, by a musical interlude from Robin Goldwasser and a fellow who’s name I didn’t catch. I had seen Robin before at the previous 826NYC benefit covering some Prince songs, and the only impression I got at the time is “Boy, how high must she be?”. But tonight my mind was changed; her duet was minimalistic and suitable to her vocal style.

Again we were visited by the Host Who’s Name I Cannot Remember, and a brief introduction later, out comes our second speaker, Ben Karlin. His name may be unfamiliar, but his humor will not be to the majority of the country:

Ben Karlin worked for The Onion while in college at the University of Wisconsin for three years, serving as editor in 1995-96. After leaving The Onion, he moved to Los Angeles to write for television and to work on numerous screenplays, including two original scripts and a handful of re-writes, which eventually became very bad, bordering-on-terrible, movies. He moved to New York in 1999 to be the head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and became executive producer of the show in January of 2003. In the time he has been there, The Daily Show has won a Peabody Award, three writing Emmys, and two Emmys for Best Late Night and Variety Program. Karlin lives in New York City in a tiny, tiny apartment.

(It should also be noted that he’s listed as a co-author for America: The Book, which I’m sure you own at least one copy of. We have two. I’m not kidding.)

Ben’s reading consisted of diary entries from 2004, all of which were hugely funny and gave a large amount of insight into the mindset of what went on behind the scenes at the show during what was arguably their biggest year. It ended on a bit of a tragic note (the last entry read was from election night – Ben noted that at the afterparty where he was surrounded by drunken ad salespeople, he “didn’t need fun to have alcohol”), but it was on a whole terribly funny. As a special shock to the audience, during a portion discussing how just reading from America: The Book is funnier than describing the writing process, he had Stephen Colbert join him on stage to read a section from the book – the one about picking your name if you’re a reporter. Colbert had a very hard time keeping his composure during the formula for Minority: Asian. (For those with the book, it’s on page 144.)

Oh, as an added bonus, TMBG played Ben on and off with themes from the Daily Show. Very neat.
Our final reader of the evening was the lovely, precious, Shining Jewel Of The United States Of America, Ms. Sarah Vowell. Sarah’s piece, like many of her pieces, was not explicit comedy but educational. She wound her way from 9/14/2001, where The Battle Hymn Of The Republic was being sung at memorial services, back to the 19th century, where the song was John Brown’s Body. The entire history of the song was traced, from the very original inspiration in a Methodist hymn, to the joke of a song written by a batallion (“John Brown’s Body” was a commander of the troop, so when they were told the abolitionist John Brown was dead, one responded “But he’s still walking around”). Minor details in the songs lyrics were pointed out over the years, like the change of “let us die to make men free” to “let us live to make men free”.

Making this a true multimedia experience were, of course, TMBG, but also the Julliard Choral Union, who sung most of the main version. All combined, it was a very stirring, informative, and (still) funny lesson on one of the parts of our country’s history everyone somewhat takes for granted.

Sarah leaves, and the Host Who’s Name I Cannot Remember returns to actually lead us through the TMBG portion of the show. We have all received librettos,; the show is a Best Of Venue Songs event. To those unfamiliar with this particular TMBG project, during their tour in the second half of 2004, they wrote a unique song about each venue they played at. Behold, venue songs! 10 venue songs were played, all amusing, all very strange but accessible in a TMBG way.

The band closed by doing some of their regular material – Birdhouse In Your Soul (which I have never liked on the album but adore live), Damn Good Times (one of my favorites off The Spine), Older (which Katie rolls her eyes about every time; I sang it to her on her 24th birthday and found me cruel), and one off the new children’s album, Alphabet of Nations (which I like much better live than on the album). Sadly, they did not play the traditional hometown favorite of New York City, but I think I can live without hearing it one more time.

A fantastic show, a fantastic benefit for a fantastic cause. I will make attempts to not say fantastic anymore, but it really was. For all New Yorkers who have not been to the Allen Room – go at least once. It’s the best concert space in the city.

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Puzzled Over

Jeffrey Steingarten vs. Food Network

There are some events in life that play out in front of you like a slow-motion trainwreck; where you feel pity and sorrow for some involved and white hot anger at others. Tonight was one of those nights.

Katie and I attended yet another seminar at the Museum of Television and Radio; tonight was The Edible Airwaves: Cooking for Television. On the slate to speak were celebrity chefs Alton Brown, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis, as well as Senior VP of Programming for Food Network, Bob Tuschman.

But there, like a cloud looming, was the fifth member and moderator of the panel: Jeffrey Steingarten. Arguably one of the most known food critics, I only knew that he could be a bit ascerbic.

Soon after the event started, it became immediately obvious that this was going to be different. Steingarten was, to put it nicely, off-topic. To put it poorly, he was a rude, obnoxious asshole. Some examples:

  • Implying, over and over, that Giada was only hired because she looks nice and not because she has cooking talent or is an accessible cook. Bob Tuschman defended her at least five times before someone in the audience shouted at Steingarten that she had talent, and he finally let it drop.
  • Repeatedly attacking the entire panel that they have an unfair advantage in selling cookbooks because they were on television. The panel protested that while their starting points may be a little higher than other cookbook authors, no one can sell a horrible cookbook and expect to continue their career.
  • He went off on frequent and needlessly long tangents, not at all helped by his very slow and shaky speaking style. At one point he actually caught himself and said “actually, this is irrelevant” – if only he had done that the other ten times. He even rambled out some non-sequitur about how Martha Stewart didn’t have time for her friends anymore and how she had changed.
  • Not asking any question that actually had much to do with the process of putting food onto television; if it wasn’t for audience questions at the end, I don’t think we would’ve gotten much insight at all.

I felt the most pure, unbridled pity I’ve felt in ages as I watched three expert cooks share baffled and slightly shocked glances as they were taken out of the conversation we all expected and had to defend their right to even have books. I felt minorly bad for Alton and Mario, but I cheered them on as Alton fired a number of shots back at Steingarten and Mario joined in occasionally. I felt horrible for Giada; she tried her damndest to sit there and smile that wonderful smile of hers and just take it, but by the end of the night she looked run down and a bit hurt over the repeated implication that she was just another pretty face.

The audience was largely in agreement; as the seminar went on, the mutters of “what the hell?” and “what a prick” grew louder in a slow but steady manner. By the end, a number of people felt ready to shout out whenever Steingarten made a bitter comment at any of the panel.

I kindly request that if anyone at the Museum of Television & Radio want to have another Food Network panel, that they keep Mr. Steingarten as far away from it as possible. I’m sure he’s a wonderful food critic, but it’s obvious from his actions at this event that he is not a big fan of the way food television has been evolving over the last ten years. This squarely puts him in opposition with much of what the Food Network has been doing since its inception.

Huge thanks to Alton, Giada, and Mario – all marvelous people, and were kind enough to stick around and talk to the fans afterwords – as well as Bob for putting up with all this nonsense.

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Uncategorized

Agenda, Remainder of 2004

Now that the New Orleans trip has completed, and I’m back in NYC, I realize that most of the remainder of the month is booked. In the hopes of those people who enjoy my company being able to find me and perhaps join us for fun, here’s the lowdown:
12/11 – That’s today. Going to Manhattan for some shopping. Kicking myself over not having tickets for the Onion Holiday Party.
12/12 – Going to see Life Aquatic at 2:00 PM at Loews Lincoln Center.
12/13 – Work.
12/14 – Work.
12/15 – Work.
12/16 – OAC’s holiday party. I’ll be out till 9 or so.
12/17 – Slice Club! We’ll be joining Adam and the other pizza nuts for an evening of slices and skating. If you wish to join us, you need to RSVP by the 14th.
12/18 – it’s Katie’s 25th birthday! During the day we’ll be making our way to the Burberry store to pick up her birthday present (iPod case), and in the evening we’ll be heading to Matsu to have Gary lavish Katie with food. Anyone who wants to do something should contact Katie or I.
12/19 – Katie’s parents come up for Fauxmas and birthday continued celebration. They will be staying the night.
12/20 – Work.
12/21 – Work.
12/22 – Katie, Buttons and I jump on JetBlue for Ithaca.
12/23 – In Ithaca, soaking up the Ithacaness.
12/24 – Christmas Eve traditional festivities.
12/25 – Christmas proper.
12/26 – Mom + Dad + Buttons + Katie + I + presents hop in the car and return to Queens; parents continue on to Mass. to visit grandma.
12/27 – Work.
12/28 – Work.
12/29 – Work.
12/30 – Ladies and gentlemen, it’s your very last 2004 Tinkle. Todd, David, Jon – plus Paul Tompkins and Fred Armisen at the very least. A year ago, I saw Yo La Tengo play at Tinkle. Five months ago, I saw Ted Leo. Who else will get added to the list? You better be there to find out. Besides company we will have coming up, we invite EVERYONE AND ANYONE we know to join us for the best comedy in NYC. Please drop me an IM or an email if you’re going to be attending – the more the merrier. 21+ only, though.
12/31 – New Years Eve. We’re doing something, but we’re not sure what yet.
And that finishes out 2004. In a bit of sad new, it’s now looking 90% sure that I will not be attending MacWorld San Francisco this year; it would appear my next west coast trek will be in June for WWDC. Should this change, though, I’ll let you know immediately.