Archives for December 2006
Amazing weight-loss machine! Lose five pounds in two hours!!
At the Nao Salon and Spa, a revolutionary machine helps clients shed pounds before the holiday parties. World famous Japanese con man, er, healer Sensei Kazuo Maeda brought his Ryu- Jitsu (“Dragon Magic”) machine to town, and for $350—pocket change—the two hour treatment has attracted so many blubber-crazed customers that the spa already has a four-year wait list.
The Ryu-Jitsu, the first of its kind in the United States, is a three-step treatment that starts with 15 minutes “on the passive [...]
Posted in The City on December 30th, 2006 | 
No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Everything Old is New Again
The good old days are back. Another fun controversy at City College—hotbed of radicalism, hothouse for neo-cons, and hot time for swingin’ singles. This time the beef is over a room that students named after convicted cop-killer, Assata Shakur and FALN bomber Guillermo Morales. After The Daily News made a stink, CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein ordered the sign taken down.
Shakur (originally Joanne Chesimard) was convicted of the crime in 1973, (some students, along with prominent hip-hoppers such as [...]
Posted in The City on December 29th, 2006 | 1 Comment »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Raymond Chandler: flawed master.
Pick-up on Noon Street, by Raymond Chandler.
Chandler is about style. Fashion, interiors, language–spare, readable, cynical language. The language of people wounded by life, clinging to particles of self-respect. Those are Chandler’s strengths.
Plot is not his strength. After reading all four stories in the collection, I couldn’t distinguish one from the other. I could admire the hell out of the writing, but the writing was so much stronger than plot it ended up distracting me; don’t ask me to tell you [...]
Posted in Books/Films/Media, The City on December 28th, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Two more days to see The Amazing Station
Designed by “award-winning Broadway scenery and lighting designer Clarke Dunham and his artist/writer wife Barbara” (from the spine-tingling brochure), the Amazing Station is pretty cool. Four railroad scenes representing four vanished train-stations over the four seasons. For those of us who long for all-that-is-train (everything, that is, except for Metro North commuters obliviously screaming into cell phones), this is the place to be.
The Amazing Station: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. Citigroup Building, 153 E. 53rd Street.
Posted in Arts & Events, The City on December 27th, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Today pedicabs; tomorrow sled dogs.
JUST WHEN WE WERE GETTING USED TO THE NEW TAXI FARE, the Bloomberg administration now wants the City Council to pass a bill requiring pedicab owners to license and insure their vehicles, have emergency brakes, seat belts, head lights and reflectors, and, presumedly raise fares—in effect turning them into bicycle-powered taxis. This doesn’t sit well with recharger, a former taxista, who, along with thousands of his brethren, says pedicabs make traffic worse and steal business. “It’s becoming a circus [...]
Posted in The City on December 27th, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
At last: an actor who won’t sell out.
The above photo says it all: Julianne Moore, star of Broadway’s The Vertical Hour, has gotten serious. With all the holiday boozing (alone) and feasting (totally alone), Recharger missed this important news because, despite urgent phone calls from Ian Schrager, he failed to attend the recent Vertical Hour party at Schrager’s Royalton Hotel. The party, ostensibly to honor Moore’s Broadway vehicle about a young Iraq war-correspondent-turned-academic, reached heights of euphoria when the four-time Oscar nominee, along with Kate Winslet, [...]
Posted in Arts & Events, The City on December 26th, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Jeter and A-Rod Domestic Partners?
CARS MEAN 52,000 FEWER JOBS IN NEW YORK CITY AND A $13 BILLION HOLD IN THE CITY’S BUDGET, says a prominent business coalition. “Traffic congestion is now a brake on the economy,” said the brilliantly eloquent Kathryn S. Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City.
The equally sound-bite savvy Environmental Defense Fund claims less cars would “cut air pollution and, as a result, illnesses like asthma.”
One proposal to reduce traffic: a $7 fee on all cars and trucks [...]
Posted in The City on December 25th, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Another reason to smoke crack.
You can’t make this stuff up. According to a recent study by the Regional Plan Association, a nonpartisan planning group, by 2030, commuters will need 12 hours to get to the office. Tragically, this means that Recharger has another excuse to stay un-employed.
Same goes for nine million other losers in the New York metropolitan area. Currently, subways ferry an average 7,126,950 people each week, a figure that will rocket upwards as the city struggles to fit the extra one million [...]
Posted in The City on December 25th, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Blog-o-monium
Looking at the art on Misterfairfield is like looking through an old book of curiosities. Gives us the shivers.
Posted in Arts & Events, The City on December 22nd, 2006 | No Comments »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
Is anyone NOT gay?
According to New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 10% of men who say they are straight had sex with at least one man during the past twelve months; 70% of these are married. Many of these same men admit they don’t use condoms and have not been tested for HIV. In fact, researchers found that straight men who sexed other men during the previous year were less likely to use a condom than sexually-active gay men.
The [...]
Posted in The City on December 21st, 2006 | 1 Comment »
[ Share / Bookmark + ]
