SOUP TO NUTS: Get Your Fresh Nutty Bits Right Here!

All the nuts that’s fit to print… We’ve got the latest scoop of nuts… The craziest late breaking nutty bits… Hot off the press from NYC… Random crazy photographs and stories… So many nutty odds & ends, so little time… Don’t miss these… Sometimes weird, often wacky… Don’t leave work without checking out these quirky quickies…

EDIBLE SUPERHEROES AT THE NEW YORK CHOCOLATE SHOW

Via the Telegraph (UK), the theme of the 11th Annual New York Chocolate Show is superheroes, including Bat Girl and Lara Croft. “The edible catwalk extravaganza”, which runs til Sunday, is “an annual weekend-long event where 60 chocolatiers pack into a 55,000 square foot venue offering free tastings and professional demonstrations of chocolate recipes.”

And how about an Obama reference for extra credit: “Narciso Rodriguez, who designed Michelle Obama’s red-and-black election-night dress, worked with chocolatier Jacques Torres to create a bodybuilder outfit…”

Photo credit: Telegraph.co.uk

NICOTINE NUTS IN NEW YORK?

Because of workers sneaking cigarettes in the former Deutsche Bank building, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has resorted to using tobacco-sniffing dogs in the condemned building.

“Careless smoking by workers inside the condemned building is blamed for the Aug. 18, 2007, fire that killed two firefighters,” according to the NY Post.

Photo credit: Gregory P. Mango

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, TAKE THE COMPUTER AWAY FROM HER

A Guanabee writer calling herself Party Girl describes Anderson Cooper as “the gay white version of anchor Jorge Ramos”. Thanks.

Then she tells us that, at the yearly Women for Women International Gala Awards in Manhattan, “master of ceremonies Anderson Cooper seemed to synchronize perfectly his mention of gang rape in the Congo with the first bite of crab salad.”

Permission to speak freely?… Anyone ever told you you have issues.

Photo credit: CNN

NOT REALLY SAMMY SOSA, NOT REALLY A SANDWICH, BUT REAL NUTS… RIGHT?

OK, let’s see if I’m following this circuitous story correctly: According to the NY Daily News, Jif, the peanut butter company, just held their sixth annual “contest for the most creative peanut butter sandwich,”.

At the contest in SoHo, a kid named Samuel Sosa won a $25,000 scholarship for his recipe, which wasn’t actually a sandwich recipe at all, rather a recipe for peanut butter fortune cookies — have I got that right?

Photo credit: Obuchoska for News

A WONDERFUL RAT MURAL: WHADDYA NEED?

By the British artist, Banksy, via New York Daily Photo:

This big fella is from SoHo: the Spring Street and West Broadway vicinity.

Photo credit: NY Daily Photo

GRATUITOUS WILLIAMSBURG PIC: OBAMA NUTS IN THE HOOD

A pic I like from freewilliamsburg:

“The obvious epicenter of Williamsburg celebratory politics — Bedford and North 7th — we ran smack dab into what Texas must’ve been like for every Bush win since 2004.”

Photo credit: ajcranford

Read more NYC nutty bits here: SOUP TO NUTS: Halloween Weekend Edition

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Down on the Boredwalk: The Hipsters of Bedford Avenue

“I’m sitting in a Williamsburg cafe, wearing a scarf, leggings and flat boots, writing a column on an expensive laptop, judging others for being try-hards.”

So writes Lisa Pryor in a Sydney Morning Herald article wherein she takes a stab at deconstructing “hipsters” (whoever they are) and “the hipster mind” (whatever that is).

“I am writing to you from the world headquarters of hipsterdom, the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Williamsburg,” she writes. “This slice of New York is the Haight-Ashbury of ironic self-loathing.”

Now, since Williamsburg is also the world headquarters of nuttiness — it’s where Nuts in NY Plaza is located — more of Ms. Pryor’s observations and pronouncements follow, illustrated by a legion at Flickr photographers.

by risi_kondor

“In Verb Cafe on Bedford Avenue, a sign reads ‘Missing: brown felt fedora’. Only four guys in the cafe are not wearing fedoras.”

by geistbear

“Young men with messy hair…”

by Compton & Wright

“…tattoos and full beards abound.”

by Mareen Fischinger

“Around the corner at egg, an uncapitalised cafe, the beardage rate tops 50 per cent.”

by cassetteject

Gentrification: “a topic on which hipsters have passionate, confused views.”

by 416style

Hipsters “hate watching property prices rise in cool neighbourhoods…”

by swilkes

“They do not want to see the earthy, quaint, ethnic working class displaced by white professionals with modular sofas…”

by lensjockey

Hipsters hate fashion. “What they love is design. It is just a coincidence that the kind of design they love happens to be fashionable right now.”

by pheezy

“They always loved Rockabilly… Just like they always had a thing for sleeveless blazers, fringed scarves and fingerless gloves.”

Photo by tizzie

“Almost as soon as the label [hipster] became common parlance, the backlash began…”

by Vidiot

“One of the seminal backlash tracts…‘Kill the hipster: Why the hipster must die. A modest proposal to save New York cool’ [by] Christian Lorentzen…”

by cloudcity

“Lorentzen wrote… ‘These hipster zombies [are] more likely to be brokers or lawyers than art-school drop-outs… And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.’”

Finally, the journalist’s appropriately self-loathing closing sentence: “I’ll shut up. I need to go away and despise myself.”

Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Photo credits: risi_kondor, geistbear, Compton & Wright, Mareen Fischinger, cassetteject, 416style, swilkes, lensjockey, pheezy, tizzie, Vidiot, cloudcity.

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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The Gyronauts: Hoop is a Verb!

I met Tash — a.k.a. Natasha Kouri — the other day on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, where she was selling her creations: a wide assortment of hoops that she describes as “colorful, sparkly, shiny and gyrotastic”. Four-year-old Leelee was with me, and she had been wanting a new hula hoop since the one I bought her a few months ago got broken. Tash said no problem, she would specially make one for Leelee’s diminutive size.

Tash in hoop performance

I discovered that, in addition to making the beautiful hoops, Tash also does hoop performances that have been described as “majestic and formidable” — employing body paint and fire — and that her NYC based troupe, The Gyronauts, has had some great gigs. They’ve performed from Florence to Buenos Aires, and also at NYC’s Mermaid and Halloween parades, and as a part of performances at concerts with rock bands such as The Dresden Dolls… I sensed some hoopla, indeed, so I grew more curious.

The Gyronauts in performance

An online source describes a hula hoop fad that took place in the 50’s, although hooping has actually been around for several thousand years. And the difference now is that hoops are much larger than the hula hoops one might have encountered as a child. Also, hooping is said to be quite an inclusive activity: one needn’t be a gymnast or dancer because “the bigger and heavier the hoop, the slower it rotates around your body.” So, with one of the larger hoops, almost anyone can hoop, “regardless of age, size, or sense of rhythm.”

Tash was also involved with a troupe of hoop performers at this year’s Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. And, according to the New York Times, she was among 80 people working four hours a night, three nights a week, for three months preparing costumes and sets which they transported out west for their festival performance the week before Labor Day.

For more photos and information on Tash and the Gyronauts, visit their myspace page.

“Hula Hoop” by Rita Paul

Photo credits: Kerry McClain; Natasha Kouri
Sculpture: “Hula Hoop”, by Rita Paul

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Fake Exotica & Williamsburg’s Young Hip Transplants

This is a rant about those who are nutty and shallow: the house of worship below, located in Williamsburg, is not a mosque, it is a church. More on that below, but first…

I knew a couple of professional hipsters, friends of my ex who were art dealers. Once, during a summer weekend with them at a borrowed Long Island vacation house, I set up my iPod so we’d have music in the house: first, some favorite Arab music — no problem — then some favorite country music — gasp, that just wouldn’t do!

My amused ex later informed me of the horror the couple expressed in the kitchen, all sotto voce like, so I wouldn’t hear…

Oh dear!

Arab music = cool… C&W = not cool… Can ya dig it, daddy-o?

So I wonder if that relates to the story here: some Williamsburg hipsterpreneur created a souvenir tote bag on which the Russian Orthodox Church is labeled a “mosque” — squint your eyes:

Tote bag depicting Williamsburg’s Russian Orthodox “mosque”

Question for hipsters: would a mosque be cooler than a church?

Some background on the Russian Orthodox Church, provided on the web page of the photographer who shot the photo up above:

Russian Orthodox Church, Transfiguration of Our Lord at 228 North 12th Street, Brooklyn, NYC. The Byzantine-style church, whose rector is the Very Rev. Wiaczeslaw Krawczuk, was built between 1916 and 1921. It was designed by Louis Allmendiger, who modeled it after the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow. The church became a city landmark in 1969 and was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

But maybe that isn’t exotic enough for some. Maybe the tote bag maker in question fled his/her hometown of Meatloaf, Kansas on a skateboard, a refugee from his/her own self-loathing or whatever who, without being conscious of it, equates ‘exotic’ with ‘cool’. And for whom thinking of that church as a mosque helps him/her feel a tiny bit hipper.

Anyway and ins’allah, read the fine source post and comments.

Photo credit: ifotog
Tote bag image: Etsy via newyorkshitty, I think.

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

Plenty more to read about groovy Williamsburg. Or maybe one of youse guys knows a nut you’d like to turn everyone on to?

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Now You Hasidim, Now You Don’t

Nothing funny to see here — except some amusing photos of hipsters in their underwear. I was the nut in this case, and now this is a retraction. After some cajoling from others here at Nuts in NY Plaza, I decided to delete something I wrote about Williamsburg’s Hasidic Jewish community, because of the kind of attention it was attracting.

This drastic action will confound Google, of course; anyone searching for the post will now get this dreaded message: NOT FOUND, ERROR 404.

The deleted post, titled “Hasidic Jews v. Brooklyn Babes on Bikes”, was based on reports that Hasids in Brooklyn objected to bike lanes being added to avenues thru their neighborhood. It was suggested by some that the lanes might encourage hipsters from north Williamsburg to cycle thru their area in less-than-modest clothing!

Now, I confess, having seen a few Williamsburg hipsters, I’m trying to imagine what kind of attire that might be…

But I’m still not sure.

Anyway, the problem was that a certain undesirable element on the Internets seems a little too interested in that article: anti-Semites. One lengthy screed submitted to the comments section rambled on illiterately about ‘what the damn Jew have done to our country’. (Oh dear, just wait til they hear what George W. Bush has did!)

After that I received word from a Jewish media organization that they would henceforth be monitoring what gets posted on Nuts in NY.

All of this, of course, was taking things in a wrong direction. Certainly for this website. But I recognize my original error in judgment. My bad. I’ll try to me more careful.

And sorry, haters, you’ll have to look elsewhere for validation of your sociopathy.

Now, if you please, let’s get back to the hipsters in their underwear…

Photo credits: thirteenofclubs via flickr

© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Brazil Nuts in NY: Capoeira for Kids??

Took my tiny son Miles to his first capoeira class today!

It takes place on Mondays at the Mamalu café/playspace in Williamsburg and is intended for 2 to 3 year olds. (Miles is a month shy of 2 - shhhhh!) Capoeira is described on Mamalu’s website as “an Afro-Brazilian art form that fuses dance, music, self-defense and acrobatics… energetic and enjoyable.”

No doubt, the class was energetic and enjoyable. However - confession - a part of me thought, ”Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore…” For example, when the muscular Brazilian group leader was demonstrating some exotic footwork or rhythmic movement to that roomful of tiny tots, I laughed a bit on the inside, thinking how different my son’s experiences in cosmopolitan, multicultural NYC are going to be in contrast to my own childhood growing up playing in the woods, next to the Mississippi River in Missouri…

But that’s just the kind of nut I am.

All in all I felt very happy to have Miles exposed to those rhythms, to that physical discipline, even at his tender age… and even if some of those 2 year olds looked thoroughly bemused rolling around on the floor!

Miles will be back next Monday. For sure.

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© 2008 NutsInNY.com

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Last Chance Freakshow

NYU Local informs us that this weekend will be the last chance of the season to experience the freakshow at Coney Island. Linda Leseman writes, “What better way to bid the summer of 2008 goodbye than with a stroll through this collection of living oddities? It’s potentially thrilling… and definitely cheap!”

The Coney Island website offers this description of sword swallower Heather Holliday:

A practicing Mormon, Heather was struck twice by lightning as a young girl growing up in Utah. While this had a profound effect on her faith, she also discovered she had the ability to absorb tremendous amounts of electricity, which bled off her fingertips, or even her tongue. As she struggled with her new talent, she performed dangerous electro-pyrotechnic tricks in the seedy Salt Lake City underground club scene to save enough money to enroll in Coney Island USA’s Sideshow School, the only place that could teach her to harness her talents. Graduating in good standing, Heather now performs her amazing acts on our stage, and at 19, is the youngest female sword swallower in the world…Heather is 5’3”, 110 lbs with blonde, red and black hair, dark eyes. Body modifications include small black tattoos TK, a number of discreet piercings and a nose ring. Costumes include Young Hipster, Golden Bikini, Retro Nightclub.

(Or as we call her here in Williamsburg, “ANYONE”!)

10 live acts and attractions total; other sideshow cast members include Insectavora, Donny Vomit, Serpentina, and Scott Baker the Twisted Shockmeister.

September 19, 20, 21

1:00 - 9:00 pm

Admission $7.50

Read more at the Coney Island website.

Photo credit: coneyisland.com

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© 2008 nutsinny.com

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Good to See Someone’s Planning Ahead

A handmade flyer posted in Williamsburg recently. All about taking the easy, albeit permanent, way out:

Source: newyorkshitty.com

Photo credit: mihow

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© 2008 nutsinny.com

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AFRICA THIS, AFRICA THAT: Clutching Onto Summer Memories

Big little Leelee, who turned 4 last week, returned recently from almost a month in South Africa - where her grandparents, cousins, aunt and uncle live, and where her mother grew up. Although she is now busy getting used to a new routine, including a new pre-k program at a public school, she also seems to be trying desperately to not let go of her summer memories - especially of her cousins, Jack and Emma, and other young playmates back in mommy’s homeland.

Some examples.

Yesterday we stopped in a local Williamsburg studio to see a large group of people doing yoga. Leelee seemed fascinated as I explained that it was a type of exercise. Then, as soon as we were back on the sidewalk outside, she proceeded to twist herself in some sort of pretzel configuration, announcing to me, “Look! These are my African exercises!”

An hour or so later, when asked by my friend what she had been doing all day, Leelee mustered up a fantastic reply involving some other playmates back in South Africa: “I was playing with my friends Rufus and Mikey in Africa!”

A few more hours later, shortly before bedtime, Leelee ran circles around my feet as I was struggling to put a clean fitted sheet on the bed for her. All the while she was blowing a harmonica, making a joyful racket. And when she stopped to catch her breath, she interjected flatly, “That’s African music.”

I cracked up laughing!

Finally, earlier today - a day later - Leelee confessed to me with some sorrow, “You know, I can’t remember my cousins Jack and Emma in Africa.” So I consoled her, “I think you’re trying as hard as you can to remember them, and that’s because you love them so much!”

That seemed to make her feel better for the moment.

© 2008 nutsinny.com

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New York’s Oldest Car Service? (Ancient!)

An employee manual found here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - from Northside car service on Bedford Avenue - has this logo inside the front of the book:

(For the math-challenged: the year 1.979 fell between the years 1 and 2, but was much closer to the latter.)

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