Longlegs Is Mostly TerrifyingThis tense, odd thriller mines the horror of ordinary people compelled to do terrible things — an unnerving reflection of modern anxieties.
‘This Is a Movie That Nobody Would Finance’The director of How to Blow Up a Pipeline couldn’t “book a single pitch meeting” to get it made. So his crew took matters into its own hands.
We Love … Bottega VenetaHere are the top five reasons we’re obsessed with the designer accessories.
ByHarriet Mays Powell
three’s a trend
The Day-Glo Look Is Here to StayFuchsia popped up at Oscar de la Renta and Michael Kors, while Narciso Rodriguez and Bensoni both used lime green.
BySharon Clott
NewsFeed
Taking a Stand Against Tequila SwagA very strange thing happened today. Things started out quite normally: We got our coffee, read our headlines, wrote some stuff, tackled the in-box — and then we got to Andrea Strong’s The Strong Buzz, a cheerful foodie e-mail filled with her musings about the usual food-blog fodder. But something was very wrong. Her latest newsletter was — and this is quite rare — angry. About swag, of all things:
This afternoon I received a box from UPS so large I thought it might contain one of those mini refrigerators I used in my college dorm room. It was so massive a box and so heavy that I had to get my brother to bring it upstairs for me. I had no idea what it was since I had not ordered a small refrigerator, or a compact car. Inside I discovered a ridiculous number of those Styrofoam “Esses,” (which stuck to me with static fervor) that concealed a large green wooden treasure chest (locked). When I figured out how to open it (the key was also secreted) I found that this massive blue wood box the size of a mini-fridge contained one bottle of tequila. I screamed. One bottle of tequila and all this waste? And that’s when I sat down to write.
It’s Final: Clinton Is UnelectableSometime last week, the narrative of Clinton’s candidacy changed from the inevitability of her nomination to, as today’s Daily News lede helpfully summarizes, “Where did Hillary Clinton’s mojo go?” We dare propose it went right up the widening gyre of the news cycle: At this point, the media continue an enthusiastic pileup — while lamenting that pileup’s largely imaginary toll. (“Clinton remains way ahead in national polls,” the News admits in the story’s tenth graph, “Though some have shown a slip.”) Not to worry: The next, equally specious, chapter will probably be about how the victimized Hillary is racking up sympathy votes. With any luck, we can go through five or six more of these twists before Iowa, basing each one on a 3 percent shift in a poll with a 4 percent error margin. In the meantime, the latest outrages.
NewsFeed
Drunkards Somehow Just Not Feeling Steak and CheeseIt’s not breaking news, but at some point in the last few weeks, the Cheesesteak Factory on East Houston Street closed after a little over a year. Let this — and the prompt shuttering of nearby De Santo pizzeria — be a lesson: It’s sometimes not enough to simply open up a place serving dubious drunk-folk food in an area full of drunk folks. And though it certainly doesn’t bode well for our fried–White Castles plan, perhaps the booze-soaked streets of the LES can accept the truth and move forward. Not likely, but a blog can dream, can’t it?
Related: One Cheesesteak Factory Takes the Cake
intel
Gloria Steinem Remembers Norman MailerIt wasn’t lost on the activists at the National Women’s Conference at Hunter College that literary lion Norman Mailer, whose writing became a target of feminist wrath during the seventies, died in New York on the same day that their event began. The weekend-long program, which drew members of some 50 women’s and girls’ organizations, was planned by the late congresswoman Bella Abzug’s daughter Liz to mark the 30th anniversary of the first such gathering in Houston. And while the elder Abzug once told Mailer, “We think your views on women are full of s—,” she supported him in his losing 1969 campaign for mayor of New York, as did Gloria Steinem, who spoke Sunday morning to a cheering crowd of about 600 women from 21 states who had attended workshops with titles like “Smashing the Glass Ceiling.”
it just happened
Kanye West’s Mom Dies During Cosmetic Procedure
Kanye West’s number-one fan, his mom Donda West, died this weekend in Los Angeles from complications related to a cosmetic procedure, CNN has just reported. Donda, 58, was the author of Raising Kanye: Life Lessons From the Mother of a Hip-Hop Superstar, which was released earlier this year. She once compared her son to Jesus, and the worship was apparently mutual. “Hey Mama, I wanna scream so loud for you, cuz I’m so proud of you,” he sang on 2005’s Late Registration. West’s publicist won’t say what type of cosmetic surgery she was having, but we’re putting all of our liposuction plans on permanent hold.
Kanye West’s Mother Dies After Cosmetic Procedure [CNN]
Kanye West’s Mother On Parenting [Baltimore Sun]
