U.S.

Theater Review: “Loot”

When a sharp-witted, clever script meets a fully competent cast who knows how to handle its’ subtleties, theatrical bliss occurs. Currently at the Lucille Lortel theater, fifty percent of this equation is intact in a revival of Joe Orton’s Loot. The script is well preserved and bitingly cynical; the delivery could be improved. Written in 1966, the British playwright’s black comedy cleverly manages to take jabs at authority by representing them as complete buffoons-equally as dumb as they as dishonorable. This was Orton’s crafty way of raging against a corrupt police society which at the time, had banned and criminalized homosexuality in England. Orton himself was gay and was a victim of this oppressive regime.

Loot opens in the living room of McLeavy (Jarlath Conroy), who is mourning the loss of his recently deceased wife. He is conversing with his wife’s nurse and caretaker, Fay (Rebecca Brooksher) a sexy bombshell jockeying to take the new widow’s hand in marriage. Meanwhile, McLeavy’s son, Hal (Nick Westrate) and his friend Dennis (Ryan Garbayo) have just robbed a bank and are seeking a place to hide the cash. Their conceal is foiled when the imposing, but dim detective Truscott (Rocco Sisto) appears at the door to incite an investigation for the missing “loot.”

What could be an impeccably timed, hilarious madcap is instead a muted attempt at farce. Most of the players in Red Bull theater’s production fall short of fulfilling the nuances and execution required for such a deft piece. One exception here is Conroy, who is remarkable as the stupefied, patriarchal lackey—mostly oblivious to the corruption around him until it is too late. He seems to be the only one asserting a British accent with any authenticity.

This reputable and well respected theater company, which specializes in classical theater, has staged a well-intended, but basically unfulfilling production. Orton’s usually provocative words are instead conveyed with simply adequate proficiency and finesse under the direction of founding artistic director Jesse Berger. It is with eager anticipation and hopefulness that their spring production of Charles Ludlam’s campy spoof The Mystery of Irma Vep is mounted with finer acuity.

Red Bull Theater’s Loot, now playing off-Broadway through February 9^th at the Lucille Lortel Theater, 121 Christopher Street (between Bleecker and Hudson). Tickets available by phone: 212.352.3101, online: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/2722 or at the box office.

NEST Labs Acquired by Google Inc.

by Alex David Jimenez

PALO ALTO, CA – On January 13th of this year, Google Inc. acquired the infant company NEST Labs for an astounding $3.2 billion dollars. The deal came only three months after NEST released its second product, the NEST Protect©. Google, a goliath of a company worth roughly $200 billion dollars, jumped at the opportunity to purchase the rapidly growing NEST before other giants like Facebook and Yahoo! had the chance.

Tony Matt — NEST Labs© Founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers

NEST Labs was founded in 2010 by engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers. Both Fadell and Rogers were employees of Apple Inc. at the time, boasting high-level positions at the company (Fadell has been called the driving force behind the original iPod). They took a large risk leaving Apple to start their own business – one which today has most decidedly been worth the effort. In 2011, NEST introduced their first product, the NEST Learning Thermostat©. The product was a success, offering a new and more modern application to heating and cooling, and utilizing WiFi technology to give users access to their home thermostat with their smart phones or tablets. With the success of the thermostat, Fadell and Rogers engineered their second product, released just this last October – the NEST Protect©. The Protect introduced a new-age look and functionality of the common smoke detector. Sales began to boom with the release of their second product, and Google Inc. saw the potential of the business.

The NEST Learning Thermostat and the NEST Protect both utilize WiFi capabilities, a component in modern technology which is becoming more and more prominent every day. The thermostat is revolutionary in that it essentially “learns” by way of remembering your particular habits and routines in the way you heat and cool your house. The temperature you are comfortable with becomes the norm, and the NEST will adjust it for you, saving you time and energy. At the same time, you can view and adjust the temperature of your home or office from you phone, even when you are not there. This comes in handy when you have a pet or children at home and want to be sure they are comfortable.

The NEST Protect is a brand new way of protecting yourself from fire and carbon monoxide. The product basis is the same, sensing smoke and chemicals and alerting you. However, it is far more advanced – in a sense, it’s smart. The Protect talks to you; If smoke is detected, it will first tell you that it senses smoke. If you’re simply burning toast, you can wave at the NEST Protect and it will hush itself- no more screaming alarm from simple cooking. The device is connected to WiFi and communicates with your smart-device. If there is smoke or carbon monoxide detected in your home when you’re not there, NEST will tell your phone. You can act immediately and contact emergency services. If the NEST Protect battery is low, your phone is alerted. No more chirping. Essentially, The Protect is revolutionary because it talks to you, and doesn’t rely solely on screeching loud obnoxious alarms.

Currently NEST Labs products are available only in the United States, though are expected to become a global product soon. The NEST Thermostat and NEST Protect are available through nest.com and found at sever retailers, including Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowe’s.

New York’s First Lady Will Have Major Influence in Manhattan Politics

by Jeff Myhre

Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, is going to have a major role in Manhattan Politics and this new administration. While the mayor has declined to define her role with any precision, she’s going to be more like Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama as the wife of the chief executive than Laura Bush or Rosalyn Carter.

That isn’t to say that Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Carter had no influence but rather that they operated behind the scenes. Any married man will tell you that a wife doesn’t need an office and a chief of staff to have influence. The question is how overt that influence will be. Mrs. McCray’s role is not going to be backstage.

Manhattan Politics NYC First Lady — Credit: Kelly Weill

McCray has just appointed Rachel Noerdlinger as her chief of staff – a woman who has been near the top of Al Sharpton’s operation. Her $170,000 annual salary is less than the $205,180 that city commissioners in charge of agencies get. Still, it’s hefty.

The mayor said “We utilized the model from the last person who had a similar role, which was Donna Hanover, who obviously was very active as chief of staff. So we looked at how her staffing was done and we’ve tried to base it on that model,” de Blasio said. Hanover, for those who don’t recall, was Mrs. Giuliani – who had a chief of staff, a press officer and two assistants.

Another signal that McCray is not going to operate behind the scenes came on Dr. King’s Birthday, when she spoke at Sharpton’s celebratory event. Speaking roles there are almost exclusively reserved for elected politicians.

However, the real reason to expect the mayor’s wife to be front and center on certain issues is her professional background. She entered politics in 1991 as a speechwriter for then-mayoy David Dinkins, a role she also held for state comptroller Carl McCall and city comptroller Bill Thompson. While Clinton was in office, she was a public affairs specialist at the New York Foreign Press Center. She also has private sector experience with 5 years with Maimonides Medical Center, and a six month stint at Citigroup’s PR department, which she herself said was “not a good fit.”

In an interview with Elle magazine, candidate de Blasio said “Chirlane’s been part of every major strategic decision in this campaign from day one. Literally. We started with an idea, and then we had to choose the core of our personnel, and then we had to choose our core ideas and message. Every part of it, every meeting that mattered.”

Her personality predisposes her to an active role, her experience and talents prove she has contributions to make, and the mayor has learned to rely on her. Her role in city government is going to be significant.

Theater Review: “Mercy Killers”

by Ryan Leeds

As residents of the “land of the free and home of the brave”, we are indoctrinated from an early age that the American dream is obtainable with just a bit of hard work and determination. For most, it is achievable. By proverbially “rolling up our sleeves” and “putting a little elbow grease into it”, we can reap the benefits of our labor by acquiring basic necessities and even enjoying luxuries as a self-reward. Alternatively, there remains a majority of people who have played by these rules–muddling through the every day grind with mettle and handling adversity with fortitude—and yet they still manage to come up short. Joe is in that majority.

Michael’s Milligan’s blistering one man drama, Mercy Killers, explores the frustrations and inequalities of a failed healthcare system through the eyes of this average “Joe”. This hour-long, literal examination is effectively staged in a black box, bare bones theater, where our protagonist is defending himself in an interrogation room for a “crime” that blurs the lines of convention.

Milligan, who both wrote and performs the show, paints a comprehensive and challenging portrait of a wounded man exhausted by a circle of despair and grief. His arsenal of rationale is depleted. Milligan’s everyman language resonates and pierces and although we can relate to elements of his plight, we hope never to fully confront its’ level of severity.

After reaching for our coats and trudging through the somber audience, my guest and I engaged in a conversation about Milligan’s exceptional work. Questions were posed and even more left unanswered about the lengths at which our leading player could have gone to have prevented his outcome . Each of us had differing opinions, but we created a dialogue about this crucial crisis. In our ever-present day of political discourse, finger-pointing, and profitable racket over healthcare, Milligan manages to strip down the arguments by humanizing them to a frustrating, but immensely profound degree.

Mercy Killers, now playing off-Broadway now through February 2^nd at the Stella Adler Studio Theater, 31 W. 27^th street between Broadway and 6^th ave. Playing Feb. 5^th through Feb. 16^th in the NYC Metropolitan Area. For more information and tickets, http://www.theworkingtheater.org/

LAND SCAPE—LaChapelle’s Eye on Big Oil

by Austin Arrington

The Paul Kasmin Gallery on Tenth Ave. in Chelsea is now hosting LAND SCAPE, an exhibition of new photographs by David LaChapelle. The exhibition opened last Friday, and runs until March 1^st.

LAND SCAPE is comprised of two series: Refineries and Gas Stations, both of which serve as commentaries on the social and environmental consequences of a petroleum-fueled consumer society. The photos are taken from handcrafted scaled models of Big Oil’s industrial infrastructure—complete with cardboard, hair curlers, egg cartons, straws, pens, cans, and other bits of found and recycled materials. In viewing this architecture of junk the connection between peak oil, the continuous production of garbage, and humanity’s growing ecological footprint is exposed.

The Refineries series draws the viewer in with its captivating otherworldliness, while simultaneously evoking a feeling of disgust—most likely at the synthetic and destructive nature of consumerism. Take for example, the image of a blue energy drink guzzling out of a refinery into the water supply. The juxtaposition of industrial oil infrastructure with household objects makes it strikingly clear that the things we buy and consume are founded upon an unsustainable oil dependency.

A pen viewed in a LaChapelle photo is no longer an innocent writing device—it takes on a number of social, environmental, and ethical concerns. By seeing the pen as part of an oil refinery, we are drawn to consider the impact of our own consumerism. We must begin to ask ourselves, how did this object get before me? What materials went in to making it? How much greenhouse gases were emitted through its transportation? What are the ecological consequences of me buying pens in the future?

The Gas Station series was shot in the rainforest of Maui. The lighting in these photos is surreal and disturbing—drawing out tensions between the plant life and fueling stations. The organic material seems to be slowly overtaking the man-made structures, while at the same time representing the very source of our fuel addiction.

Before breaking out in the world of fine-art photography, LaChapelle cut his teeth as a commercial photographer. His first job as a photographer was at Interview magazine, at the request of Andy Warhol. He has shot for The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Face, Vanity Fair, Vogue Italia, and Vogue Paris. In 1995 he shot the famous “kissing sailors” piece for Diesel, which was one of the first public advertisements depicting homosexual kissing. His earlier photos of celebrities and models (the kind with long legs, not the kind you build) have a glam “Barbie world” affect—a synthetic quality that also runs through his current work. LaChapelle seems to have even physically taken on the aesthetic of his photos…let’s just say that he looks way too young for 50.

The opening looked something like a hybrid between Zoolander and a Fellini film—a circus of rooms packed with attractive people hobnobbing, trying to get a shot with the artist, a few kooks dressed like Final Fantasy characters, representatives from the contemporary art intelligentsia stroking their chins, and a sprinkling of celebrity (such as transgender model Amanda Lenore).

Of course, most art openings have an element of superficiality—this scene is nothing new. LaChappele’s work is interesting in that it seems to embrace superficiality and artificiality (whether in the art world, the media, or in consumer trends) in order to turn these ideas around, and pose interesting questions about society and the world we live in.

LAND SCAPE is an exhibition that makes you think about things that are easy to sweep under the rug. It offers a hallucinatory glimpse at the consequences of our consumption and disregard for natural resources as a society, while offering stunning visual imagery and craftsmanship to wrap your head around.

Theater Review: “Hamlet” and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”

by Ryan Leeds

“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.” This request, spoken by Hamlet (to a group of players) in Act 3, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, is a plea for clarity and authenticity. After all, the acting troupe is about to perform a play in front of Hamlet’s step-father, Claudius, and his mother, Gertrude. So why is there such urgency in the appeal? Hamlet hopes that the play will shatter the consciousness of Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father in order to gain control of the throne. This appeal continues, as he elaborates on how actors should deliver lines. I would suspect that Ian Belknap gave his highly competent cast similar advice during the rehearsals for The Acting Company’s touring production of Hamlet, now enjoying a brief residency through February 1^st at The Pearl Theatre.

To address the genius of William Shakespeare is analogous to pointing out the color of the sky. Throngs of scholars, educators, historians, and fans have spent years dissecting and debating the penultimate playwright since he burst onto the literary landscape of 16^th century England. Although his works are performed often, it is a rare occurrence when they are done at the level of vibrancy displayed here. As I sat watching and listening, I was reminded of Shakespeare’s eloquent insight on the human condition. Centuries have passed and yet we are the same mortal creatures who suffer grief, loss, rage, guilt, heartache, jealousy, revenge, rage, and possibly madness. It is a blessing that such weighty emotional material is receiving such a comprehensible and engaging treatment.

John Skelley’s interpretation of the troubled Danish Prince is personalized and accomplished. His delivery of the language, especially in the pivotal and often quoted monologues, breathes fresh life to the text, as though you were listening to the woes of a contemporary friend. Andy Nogasky’s yammering, but wise Polonius (Chief Counsel to the throne) proves affable and charming and Jacquline Correa creates an exquisitely regal Gertrude- aside from her silver glittered, chunky high- heels. On RuPaul’s Drag Race, they would give other “queens” reason to exalt her majesty. But In Elizabethan era Denmark? Methinks not. Candice Donnelly’s costumes, for the most part, lack aristocratic propriety. Neil Patel’s scenic design offers understated simplicity. All of the action occurs in a neutral, abbey-like setting but still suggests royalty and nobility.

Two normally “forgotten” characters in Shakespeare’s masterpiece are claiming the spotlight with linguistic aplomb. Not necessarily in this production of Hamlet, but in The Acting Company’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which in playing in repertory with Hamlet at the Pearl Theater.

Tom Stoppard’s 1966 comic tragedy is a wholly original view from the minds of two minor players from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Rosencrantz (Grant Fletcher Prewitt) and Guildenstern (Ian Gould) are two schoolmates of the troubled prince who take instruction from Claudius and Gertrude to spy on him and discern whether of not their friend is truly mad. In Stoppard’s piece, the two question their mission, each other, themselves, and nearly the meaning of every word that each of them speak. Along the way, they pantomime characters from Hamlet and the play is interspersed with actual scenes from it. Life’s meaning, monotony, and existence is pondered amidst double entendres, verbal jousting, and wry British humor.

To be honest, it is not one of my favorite plays. Having studied it in college and being familiar with college productions, I found that it crossed into levels of pretension. Under director John Rando’s hand, Stoppard’s critically regarded piece is pensive, lively, and very funny. Prewitt and Gould handle the complex wordplay with flair and their onstage chemistry is a joy to watch. The remaining company supports the two as they double as a flamboyant acting troupe and actual characters from Hamlet.

The Acting Company should stand up and take a bow, for they are continuing the tradition of bringing classic theater to a broad audience. Their mission of arts education to under-served communities is inspiring and vital. Founded in 1972 by John Houseman, they have received numerous awards, including a TONY for Excellence in Theater. New Yorkers seeking high-quality, classic theater should rush to the Pearl Theater while the company is still in town through February 1^st. Certain performances are already sold out, so get thee to the box office soon.

Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, presented by The Acting Company at the Pearl Theater Company, 555 W. 42^nd street between 10^th and 11^th avenue. Tickets available at the box office, online at www.pearltheatre.org or by phone: 212.563.9261. Performances vary.

Sample Sale This Weekend- TOME, Chadwick Bell, and Nomia

by Danielle Flocco

Sample sales are possibly the greatest sales there are in the city. Why? You can score designer pieces at a fraction of the price.

This Friday and Saturday you can check out TOME, Chadwick Bell, and Nomia women’s wear for up to 80% off their original retail prices, with items starting at just $50. Their most exciting advertised deals available at the sample sale are a beautiful silk Georgette cross back dress marked down to $395 from $875 and a heavy wool felt cape going for $595 as opposed to the original retail price of $1,475. If any of these great designers’ products has ever caught your eye, you won’t want to miss this opportunity.

If you’ve never gone to a sample sale before, there are a few things you need to know. They can definitely be overwhelming to the average shopper.

Here are some tips for shopping this weekend’s sale:

Do not expect every item to be 80% off. While most items will have a tremendous discount, there will still be a lot that are close to retail. The designers are typically trying to sell their excess inventory, and will not tag items at their lowest possible price. To know if you’re getting a true steal, check the tag. If the sample costs approximately 50% less than the original retail price, then you are getting a great deal. If not, well it’s definitely still a sale, just not at the most wallet friendly price.
Try to bargain for a better price by looking for possible defects or flaws that you can fix up easily. Check out the zipper, seams, buttons, and any decorative details to see if they’re loose or flimsy. Odds are they’ll take off a few more dollars if you’re willing to buy it despite a loose button. By looking over everything you can save yourself a lot of money by finding things it takes a dollar or two to fix at home.
Try on everything before you buy it. More often than not these items have been cut for a specific model’s body or for a certain style. Since you can’t return items purchased at a sample sale, make sure it fits you as perfectly as the person as it was made for. While alterations and other quick fixes can solve problems like sleeve or pant length, they can’t entirely change the item. Before buying also consider the costs of alterations. If you’re looking at $50 or so in alterations, make sure you’re getting a true deal on the sample item.
Go to the sale at the right time. At the beginning almost nothing will be sold for anything lower than it is tagged at. Shoppers will still be getting great deals, but they won’t be as big as the deals towards the end of the sale. If you wait until the last few hours of the last day, you can often get up to an additional 20% off your purchase. At this point, they see that what is still there may not sell if they don’t lower the price.

With those tips in mind, make your way over to the sale this Friday and Saturday.

The TOME, Chadwick Bell, and Nomia sample sale is taking place from 10 am to 7 pm at 150 West 25^th Street between 6^th and 7^th Avenues, Suite 502 in New York, NY.

“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” Review

by Ryan Leeds

In 1960, an aspiring would be teacher walked into record producer Don Kirschner’s office at 1650 Broadway and turned herself into one of pop’s music biggest songwriters. This precocious 17 year from Brooklyn was Carol Joan Klein, who later became the legendary Carole King. Ms. King’s life tale is unfolding nightly at Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim theatre in the mostly entertaining, occasionally schmaltzy, biographical “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”

King is best known for her 1971 album Tapestry, for which she was awarded Grammys for album, record, and song of the year. Yet before this seminal recording, she wrote feel good pop hits with husband and co-writer Gerry Goffin including “Take Good Care of My Baby”, “One Fine Day”, “Up On The Roof”, “The Loco-motion”, and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.”

Doug McGrath’s book weaves the story of King’s younger days with energetic slick musical numbers by those who made them famous (The Drifters, The Shirelles, and Little Eva). Married at the age of 17 to Goffin, King’s uphill battle with his wandering eye, manic depressive behavior, and substance abuse ultimately led to their divorce in 1968.I certainly don’t wish to minimize the personal turmoil that a troubled marriage can cause, but one has to question whether or not that singular issue of a biographical piece can sustain an entire production. Luckily, there are more than enough winning performances to compensate.

Jessie Mueller’s take on Carole King is stunning. While she doesn’t impersonate her subject, she evokes all of her warmth and heartache. Mueller splashed onto the Broadway scene in the otherwise forgettable revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in 2011 and scored a Tony nomination for her role as the jazz singer. Tony voters would be wise to take note of her star-turn portrayal of an artist whose vulnerability and quiet strength have given us timeless classics and inspired countless singer-songwriters. Jake Epstein does a fine job of balancing Goffin’s neuroses and womanizing into a still sympathetic, conflicted soul. Anika Larsen and Jarrod Spector are top notch as Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann (respectively). Weil and Mann were friendly rivals to Goffin and King during their early songwriting years and penned the chart toppers “On Broadway”, “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”, and “Walking in the Rain”, all of which are performed by a high-octane ensemble.

It is a curious observation that the show has been billed as “The Carole King Musical”, as much of its content features a broad overview of the 1650 Broadway/Brill Building era of songwriting. The “1650 Broadway Medley” near the top of Act 1, is a cleverly staged look at the days when songs were cranked out like cars on an assembly line. Upon hearing “Be-Bop- A- Lula” for the first time, Producer Kirschner (played with a fine blend of rakishness and charm by Jeb Brown), interrupts mid-way through the song and asks, “Is the rest of it like this? Just the same few notes over and over with lyrics that a dolphin could write?” He then applauds and exclaims, “I’ll take it! That’s very popular right now!” Indeed. Songs of that ilk were the rage back then and Beautiful has no shortage of them. Steve Sidwell’s sharp orchestrations and musical arrangements maintain the integrity of the original recordings and complement a masterful cast.Derek McLane’s scenic work is smartly designed and Alejo Vietti’s costumes are “sixties trendy” and fashionably appropriate. Combined, these elements will leave audiences with a smile on their faces and fond musical memories. While many other jukebox musicals tend towards banality and blandness, Beautiful is fun to watch, easy on the ears, and it might just (oh dear reader, I simply can’t resist)–make the “earth move under your feet.”

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is now playing at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, 124 West 43rd Street between 6^th avenue and Broadway; Tickets are available by phone at 212-239-6200, telecharge.com, or at the box office.

Standout Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab

by Austin Arrington

From 2011-2013, the mobile BMW Guggenheim Lab studied life in modern cities, offered free programs and workshops, and implemented projects across New York City, Berlin, and Mumbai. 100 Urban Trends emerged from the Lab as a database for the most talked-about trends in city life. Participatory City, a recent exhibit at the Guggenheim, provided an overview for the major trends explored by the project.

The Lab teams were interdisciplinary, and included experts in the fields of urbanism, architecture, art, design, science, technology, education, and sustainability. What follows is a sample of standout trends from the Lab’s work in NYC.

Altruism may be a surprising trend for anyone who thinks of NYC as a hardened, “get yours” type of city. “Altruism” means showing concern for the wellbeing of others in a selfless way (even at cost to oneself). During Love Night, psychologists and neuroeconomics experts attempted to design environments that could inspire even the most wolfish of Wall Street to act decently. The idea is that design combined with citizen action can encourage friendly behavior in daily life.

Bike politics takes a critical look at the debate on bike infrastructure in cities—covering topics such as traffic laws, cyclist fatalities, and the need for more bike lanes. During the Mobility in Cities event, Benoit Jacob, head of BMW’s division on sustainable transportation, met with New York City Department of Transportation chief of staff Margarat Newman. The two brainstormed on the future of urban mobility, exploring new possibilities for public transportation, cars, and bikes.

Evolutionary infrastructure looks at modalities of architecture and city planning that allow for natural and artificial systems to work effectively together. Engineered and natural processes are viewed as reciprocal evolutionary forces. Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design led a workshop on evolutionary infrastructure, with the aim of discovering renewed potential for mega-utopias.

Hacking the city refers to the capacity of urban inhabitants to transform city systems through informal actions. Sociologist Saskia Sassen came up with the idea, in order to show how open-source, grassroots participation can help make cities more habitable and humane. The idea is to subvert the meaning of hacking from technological to humanist. Perhaps dog-walkers, old ladies on stoops, and other vigilant community members are preferable to the most advanced surveillance technologies.

Resilience is a city’s ability to cope with and recover from hardship. While it can mean different things, often a resilient city is able to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. It goes without saying that NYC’s response to Superstorm Sandy falls under this category. A panel discussion took place on different ways that New Yorkers can actively respond to environmental stress in the coming years.

Urban psychology studies the effects of city life on mental health and wellbeing, looking into areas such as stress, overstimulation, anxiety, relationship to space, and urban fatigue. Journalist and Lab member Charles Montgomery gave a talk (Comfort, Cities, and the Science of Happiness), arguing that similar components go into designing happy, sustainable, and resilient cities.

Some have criticized the BMW Guggenheim Lab for being overly conceptual and having little impact on actual urban existence. During its time in the East Village, some residents complained that the ideas being explored by the Lab where already in effect in the area (such as community gardens, locally owned art galleries, and small businesses). Critics said that the Lab might have done more good in a community lacking the resources of the LES.

While the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s work was highly academic, it’s relevancy can’t be blown off easily. During the Lab’s stint in NYC, it explored and engaged with critical issues for New Yorkers. However, the extent to which city-dwellers will be able to apply what was learned through the Lab in daily life remains to be seen.

Journeying Inside Llewyn Davis

by Dane Benko

The trailer for the new Coen brothers movie was a surprisingly dry tease. With stilted, almost Mumblecore dialog in desaturated imagery over Bob Dylan’s folk chords, the trailer sold the movie as any other 20-something inspired indie flick. To frustrate the viewer further, it cuts to black before the audience even hears Llewyn’s first acoustic strum. Upon unwrapping, however, Inside Llewyn Davis proves to be a box stuffed full of the Coen brothers’ best working habits, complete with amusingly dysfunctional failures of characters, dialog that variously nips and bites, and for what it’s worth, the best folk soundtrack for a movie seen since… well, the Coen brothers’ other folk-inspired Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Inside Dave Van Ronk album cover — Take note of this cover.

Oscar Isaac takes up the role of a couch-surfing New York folk singer in 1961, who is also a physical amalgamation of early Bob Dylan and his colleague Dave Van Ronk (the latter comparison is revealed explicitly by the cover of Llewyn’s new solo album Inside Llewyn Davis, which remakes the cover of real life album Inside by Dave Van Ronk). The movie begins in media res with an answer to the cutaway of the trailer, by settling right in to a concert at The Gaslight in Greenwich Village (again, Van Ronk’s old haunting grounds). After a pleasant introductory song you get used to the smoky enchantment of the place, rendered by new(ish) Coen brother collaborator Bruno Delbonnel (Roger Deakins was busy shooting Skyfall, so the brothers hired the director of photography from their Paris, je t’aime short). Once the piece is over, however, events quickly turn brutal, as Llewyn apologizes for hitherto unknown drunken actions of the night before to his barkeep friend, and then gets kicked and beaten outside the bar.

It turns out that the beginning is a bookend device and the background to these events are strung out from there. Llewyn Davis is feckless at best: sleeping in an unending circle of his friends’ couches, dropping his equipment off hither tither, and trying to run away from either some crushing responsibility or inner demons, it only becomes clear later which. He’s the existential and dramatic counterpoint to a slapstick hero, his thoughts always one step behind his own actions, resulting in a cascade of negative consequences.

Within the first couple of scenes he loses his upscale professor friend’s cat and is chewed out by Jean (Carey Mulligan), girlfriend of Jim (Justin Timberlake) for possibly getting her pregnant. Situations never really settle from there. As Llewyn Davis traverses the lonely New York City landscape, staving off fatigue and rolling over his debt against time into higher interest rates, we get further insight into the nature of his base circumstances. It turns out that he’s being left behind as Jean’s and Jim’s careers start to blossom, the folk scene starts to crystallize, and Llewyn has to make a decision between finding work and dedicating himself to his art. Thus the odyssey starts, as Llewyn seeks a way to get cash from his agent, the cat back to the Gorfeins, and the attention of record executive Bud Grossman, not to mention come to terms with his defiantly hidden feelings for Jean. This journey will bounce him up and down Manhattan’s west sides and between New York and Chicago, while running him into a variety of Coenish characters such as John Goodman’s appearance as a batty and overweight jazz musician.

As a central character, Llewyn can sometimes be difficult to stomach. With an abrasive personality, caustic attitude, and a constantly burning frustration, he’s every deadbeat mooch you’ve ever been friends with, except slightly more parasitic. Nevertheless the Coens actually manage to not only provoke sympathy, but actually all out empathy for his character. For all his screw-ups he doesn’t have much of a choice, and ultimately his inner motivations come down to things and people he’s lost well before the movie started. The trip he takes doesn’t operate quite like a Hero’s Journey, but rather is the medium through which we gain insight into his past. Thus the movie elegantly lives up to its name.

Whether audiences will muster it will be a different question. Inside Llewyn Davis is inverse O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Where the latter is colorful and fun the former is drab and so dry it crackles. Where the O Brother sold its soundtrack, the soundtrack sells Llewyn Davis. And rather than adapting The Odyssey with folk music, Llewyn Davis structures folk music history around an odyssey. The result is the exact type of movie that excites critics but depresses audiences.

U.S.

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