The Luna Park Gazette

What do I know from art? Not much, apparently, but I still had a good time. I went to the Park Avenue Armory on Friday for the last day of a 5-day “Open Studio” featuring the work of Yoshitomo Nara, a Japanese artist who is having a show at the Asia Society . The armory’s website said that the artist and his collaborative team, YNG, “will undertake rebuilding the structure of the installation work, Home , and Nara will establish a temporary studio to create new drawings and other works that will be included in Asia Society Museum’s exhibition Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool .” According to WNYC, “Nara's appearance at the installation on Monday elicited sobs from one of his young Japanese fans; they just managed to drown out the sound of drills and hammers.” Sounds like quite a guy. The site also carried this advisory—which I heard on WNYC as well—“All visitors must wear closed-toed shoes with a hard sole and shirts that cover their shoulders. Hard hats will be provided.” Hard hats? ...

All I wanted to do was buy some turkey. I walked into a butcher shop in Bay Ridge yesterday and found myself in the middle of the Ground Zero Mosque debate. Now, of course, it isn’t a mosque and it isn’t located at Ground Zero, and there already two mosques located in the neighborhood—along with a topless bar. And the politically motivated lies, distortions, and blatant fear mongering being spewed on the airwaves and the Internet bear absolutely no resemblance to a debate. Now back to the butcher shop... I was buying some cold cuts and pasta when the cashier—we’ll call her Maggie—rang up my order and then promptly whipped out a newspaper to show me a story about the first Muslim Miss USA who happens to believe that the Islamic cultural center should move from its planned location on Park Place. "You see," she said. "This woman's a Muslim and she thinks they shouldn't build it there." What this has to do with the price of eggs—or sliced turkey in this case—I ...

Today is my late mother’s birthday and I decided to a little research to see what happened on the day and in the year she was born. I think the most striking thing I learned was that The Wizard of Oz was released on August 15, 1939. This was one of my mother’s favorite movies—she was a huge Judy Garland fan—and it seems fitting that she and this classic film that she loved so much would share a birthday. Apocalypse Now was released on this date 40 years later, but I can’t say my mom was a big fan of this flick. I don’t even know if she ever saw it. Edna Ferber, who wrote Show Boat , was born on this day in 1887. Ben Affleck, Ethel Barrymore, Julia Child, Vernon Jordan, Jimmy Webb, Sir Walter Scott, and Huntz Hall—the guy who played Satch in all those Bowery Boys movies—were all born on Aug. 15. My mother lived through the Depression and on August 15, 1930, Herbert Hoover held a press conference in which he offered plans for relief of people and businesses affected by a series of dev...

Listen my children and you shall hear… nothing . Isn’t it wonderful? I’m back in New York after a week at my aunt’s farmhouse in the Berkshires and I’m having a hard time adjusting to the urban noise levels. My aunt and her husband bought their house outside of Northampton, MA when I was a sophomore in high school and I’ve been going up there for years. Their property is beautiful, secluded, and, most importantly, it’s so quiet you can’t believe your ears. On most days all you’ll hear is the wind blowing through the trees. No blaring car stereos, no roaring motorcycles, no honking horns, no idiots hog-calling into cell phones or holding “conversations” with the person right next to them that can be heard from three blocks away. It's just quiet . And at night you have a live star show that makes your troubles seem small and your heart feel huge. I hadn’t been to the place in about three years now and after the usual bus hell ride out of the Port Authority, I returned to my second ho...