“I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of summer,” wrote French author Violette Leduc in her autobiography, “Mad in Pursuit”. If only New Yorkers could do the same!
The city, as usual, is scuzzy and hot during these summer months, and there’s little to do but sweat it out or, if you’re lucky enough to have a job with air-conditioning, freeze it out.
Using three industrial dumpsters, the men constructed a multi-pool haven that also features a barbecue, cabana, lounge chairs, pool toys and a bocce court. The water 18,000 gallons of water are kept pristine by a filtration system that allows everyone to splash about germ-free.
The pool is free but private–aka, open only to friends, family, and those with a connection to one of the three proprietors. The pool stays open through August, so you’ve got 1.5 months to work your connections. Get on it.
Brooklyn-based artist Edith Zimmerman is the Tom Friedman of snacks. Working with materials lifted from the veg bin and pantry, she crafts ingenious sculptures and catalogs the results on her blog. The results are instantly enjoyable and devilishly clever. Herewith, a teeny questionnaire with the artist herself:
Why do you work with food?
Because when I see a piece of food art there’s some super straightforward part of my brain that just goes, “that’s a fish made out of lettuce, haha!” or “that’s a cat made out of a carrot, haha!” Also because I’ve seen some really great food art by a bunch of other people and it looked like a lot of fun to make.
What are your favorite things about working with food?
Looking at a piece of food until it reminds me of something. That part is fun. Although sometimes it’s frustrating because everything looks the same to me. Like–nectarine: it looks like a head. Potato: it looks like a head. Grape: it looks like a head. Celery: I could turn that into a head.
Do you nosh your creations after making them?
Sometimes! But usually not. Which I know is a waste, but usually by that point my fingers have been all over them and they’re cut up into weird pieces. But I did chop that scallion praying mantis over a bowl of soup, and I ate the hard-boiled egg for sure.
If you had all the materials of the supermarket at your disposal…what would you make?
A full dinosaur skeleton. Or a human skeleton. I could use parsnips for the bones, probably. Or a full-size vampire that I kept in the closet like he was sleeping standing up. I might make him out of all sorts of things.
With songs about being eaten alive and choking to death on chicken bones, Really Rosie is the kind of flippant, oddball children’s entertainment that today’s squeaky clean High School Musical-fed generation is sorely lacking. Directed by the artist himself, 1975’s Really Rosie is an animated TV special based on Maurice Sendak’s children’s books, with musical accompaniment by Carole King. The story takes place on Avenue P in Brooklyn, centering around a motley crew of kids including an alligator, an adorably apathetic brat named Pierre, and Rosie herself– an egocentric older girl whose furry beard-like boa sometimes gives her the appearance of a lazy drag queen. Check out the song “One Was Johnny” from Really Rosie, below. It’s the story of the world’s cutest misanthrope, and it teaches the numbers 1 through 10 while subversively advising kids that it’s okay to be an introverted loner!
The sounds is a bit off on this clip, but the entire 30-minute production without glitches is available on YouTube.
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