Lifes Rich Pageant

Paul Newman RIP

Sad news about a great actor and a fine humanist.

Here is a clip of the screen test for East of Eden with James Dean and Paul.

James Dean & Paul Newman Screen Test

In a Fog

This morning dawned an autumnal foggy grey and stayed that way till midday.

Those glorious days of summer are well gone.

Its a good day for a New York Film Festival movie, a Booker prize novel and a glass of Argentinian merlot.

 

Source Neil Smith 2008

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kenton - nelson

Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long. No matter what I say or do I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.

You hold me without touch. You keep me without chains. I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love and not feel your rain. Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.

Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be. But you're on to me and all over me. You loved me 'cause I'm fragile. When I thought that I was strong. But you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone.

I live here on my knees as I try to make you see that you're everything I think I need here on The ground. But you're neither friend nor foe though I can't seem to let you go.

The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down Keepin' me down Yeah you're on to me on to me and all over Something always brings me back to you it never takes too long

Sushi Azabu

Great find today for lunch.



Sushi Azabu, Tribeca’s new secret sushi bar, is so small and stealthy, you’ll want to keep its location to yourself.

This Tokyo-style raw-fish shrine—tucked away in the basement of the Italo-Japanese Greenwich Grill—has only three banquettes and a half-dozen seats at the bar. Like a hot-boîte bouncer, the upstairs host notifies downstairs via radio of your party’s arrival. Through the main dining room you go, descending into a Zen cavern with stained bamboo on the ceiling and polished pebbles lining the floor. The seats at the bar are hot real estate for solo diners who happily hobnob with the talkative chefs while popping exceptional nigiri morsels into their mouths.

The $58 prix-fixe set meal—a generous bargain considering the world-class sushi you’re getting—offers beautiful sashimi and grilled salmon starters, followed by half a roll and seven plump pieces (among them luscious chutoro and sweet, silky raw shrimp).

The no-less-enticing à la carte options include opulent, barely seared Wagyu beef tataki, and superior maki filled with still–warm-and-crispy tempura shrimp. The long dessert menu, imported from the restaurant upstairs, features mixed berries in a refreshing red tea syrup and a classic sweet, creamy, crunchy Mont Blanc chestnut parfait. Unorthodox, but delicious.

New York Film Festival Opening Night

Take a classroom full of outspoken, multiethnic teens from a tough Parisian junior high school, none of them professional actors, add a real-life teacher trying to make a difference, and you’ve got Laurent Cantet’s utterly engrossing portrait of the new France, The Class - the triumphant winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes.

François Bégaudeau, from whose nonfiction account of teaching in just such a school the film is adapted, plays himself in this unsentimental, superior addition to the canon of classroom movies, set over the course of an academic year.

Cantet, a veteran of several Film Society programs including the New York Film Festival (Time Out, NYFF 2001), has pioneered a new kind of social cinema, one that explores the key issues of our day and avoids sermonizing and easy conclusions. The Class is the finest and most important example of his work yet.

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Wall Street

source Neil Smith 2008

I'm sitting in the small apartment on the 28th floor, sipping on the bitter caffeine of my second 6 am espresso watching the fall sun meekly rise over the skyscrapers of downtown. I'm wondering about the wreckage of the last two weeks - 150 year old companies gone, careers ruined, and lives changed forever. I'm still standing, thankfully.

But Wall St has changed forever.

source Neil Smith 2008

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend, is a quartet of Columbia kids who offer up damn-near perfect pop tunes with an endearing sincerity that you have to hope can survive their inevitable rocket to stardom.

But don't mistake their earnest attitudes for naivete; these boys write beyond their years, with pointed, often sardonic commentary soaring over ebullient keys in sing-a-long verse.

Vampire Weekend cite African bands like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Kanda Bongo Man as pull points. Of course, these Columbia grads flaunt their Western roots, too: "A-Punk"'s got some Kinks, "Oxford Comma" is like MMJ's Z revisited from Brooklyn.

Listen to a remix by the Teenagers of Vampire Weekend's Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa here: Download cape_cod_kwassa_kwassa_the_teenagers_remix.mp3

Race for the Cure - Crowd Shots

source Neil Smith 2008

Fading memories

source : Neil Smith 2008