Remembering the "Pine Tar Incident" @ Yankee Stadium -- July 24, 1983

" ... and thank you for your support": Remembering Bartles & Jaymes Ads in NYC

Gotta Love New Yorkers

Overhead in the Temple of Dendur at the Met Museum: "Who's more evil? Herod or the Sacklers?"

Brooklyn @ America 250

On this July 4th, 250th anniversary of American Independence, I'm going to focus on one place -- Brooklyn.

I recently spent a week there and, if you want to understand the greatness of America, you can find it in the history, food, and streets of this mighty borough that once upon was its very own city. For example ...

... if you go there you can eat at amazing restaurants like Wheated.

... if you walk the streets you can see funny bumper stickers like:

... at night you find people watching the World Cup on the streets and join them!

... and you can get stunning views of the city when you take the train into Manhattan, a reminder that we are huge city of islands, a city on water, a city that contains multitudes.

Happy birthday America, and America wouldn't be a great as it is without Brooklyn!

NYC Hosts the Wedding of the Year

Two Classy Brits Talk "Mamdani Effect" Beyond NYC

And as we celebrate America 250, what do our former masters in the United Kingdom, the people "across the pond", think of their once-upon-a-time subjects?

Well, these two classy Brits have some thoughts -- especially about the mayor of NYC and how the "Mamdani Effect" is extending beyond NYC and even into the former Mother Country.

America 250: George III's Failure

I'm fascinated by stories of failure. As a failure myself, it's so much more interesting than success. That's why I read books and watch documentaries about movies that flopped, about wars that went wrong, about various other things that went awry. Somewhere along the way someone made a decision or decisions that seemed correct at the time -- but that turned out instead to be really wrong. Failure is about the intersection of intent with human falibility, about the clash between dreams and reality. 

I'm a fan of failure. 

Therefore, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, I'd like to share these hilarious clips from the 1994 movie The Madness of King George where George III mourns the "paradise lost" that was "the colonies." Of course two decades later the musical Hamilton would have a more comic take on George III's defeat -- but after 250 years, we won't "be back."

Climbers Storm the Empire State Building!

How Many Shots Are There in a "Tootsie" Shot?

I didn't realize that it had a name but it does: that shot ... that shot when a person or a couple of people are walking the crowded streets of NYC, a long-lense camera focusing on them as we follow their journey -- both literal and existential -- is called "the Tootsie shot." 

That's because, in the 1982 classic Tootsie, we follow the crossdressing hero played by Dustin Hoffman as he/she walks the crowded Manhattan streets as they try to restart their acting career as a woman. 

I just listened to an entire podcast episode about this particular shot, and how variations of it appear in different ways in many NYC movies. But what this shot contains, what all the version of it contains, is the same visual meaning -- that of a person, alone in NYC, is starting a new journey that will change his or her life. 

And here's the thing: "the Tootsie shot" is much older than Tootsie itself. In the 1969 classic Midnight Cowboy -- more than a decade before Tootsie -- Hoffman himself walks on the streets in a crowd, bellowing his classic line, "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" 

There are many examples of this famous shot from different NYC movies over the decade -- including two with John Travolta playing the Brooklyn dancer Tony Menero. 

Here are some great examples of "the Tootsie shot" in some classic NYC movies:

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Shaft (1971)

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Times Square (1980)

Tootsie (1982)

Staying Alive (1983)

The Secrets of My Success (1987)

Working Girl (1988)

Sea of Love (1989)

The Prince of Tides (1991)

Elf (2003)

NYC: Days of Future Past

Last night's NYC primaries made history -- two members of Congress were defeated as were several members of the state legislature, and the Democratic Socialists of America saw several of its candidates win (including the Brooklyn Borough President who was running for Congress losing).

Even though Tammny Hall is long gone, it's spirit remained in NYC politics for decades -- static, perenially status quo, incumbents getting reelected over and over and over again. Rarely, very rarely, did incumbents lose -- until the last few years. That's now accelerated, and incumbents are starting to drop like flies.

Only time will tell but it appears that NYC's political future will be much more dynamic.

And while NYC's political future is being forged, its past is being memoralized -- although somewhere far from NYC: a new presidential library for Theodore Roosevelt, only one of two presidents born in the city, is opening ... in North Dakota. It might seem like an odd place but TR spent a lot of time in the state during his youth and had many formative experiences. Also, city-boy that he was, TR founded the national parks, preserving so much of the nation's wilderness. So it's appropriate his library would be out there -- cementing his legacy in the place where he forged it.

When it comes to NYC politics, these days we're truly living in the past and future at the same time.