As an architecture buff, and one with an academic interest in the somewhat underrated field of vernacular architecture, I’ve been following the “Brad Pitt saves New Orleans” story with a healthy dose of skepticism. Yes, anyone using his celebrity and monetary largesse for a good cause is to be commended, and yes, I’m kind of psyched that Brad Pitt is into architecture and not just wine, women, and song. But a Hollywood celebrity swooping in to impose a distinctly modern taste onto an area known for its historic domestic architecture, a building tradition termed the “shotgun” house which traces its roots to Haiti and West Africa? Like I said, I’m dubious. And so is preservationist Clem Labine, writing about the issue for The CIVITAS Chronicles.
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1. TIME magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world is out; A-listers from Banksy to Conan O’Brien are namechecked and the cover pairs Lady Gaga with Bill Clinton. [via TIME]
2. OMFG, WTF is Paramount doing making a Magic 8-Ball movie? “Reply hazy, try again.” [via Vulture]
3. Interpol! Remember them? They’ve just released a new song called “Lights.” What does it sound like? No idea, since the download didn’t work, but if I had to guess I’d say “dark,” heavy on the reverb, and lyrically confusing. [via Stereogum]
4. Unlikely female triumvirate alert: Sarah Silverman is in talks to co-star with Michelle Williams (actress featured in several topographically based dramas such as Dawson’s Creek, Brokeback Mountain, Shutter Island) in Sarah Polley‘s directorial feature Take This Waltz. [via Variety]
5. New York mag’s veteran party reporter Jada Yuan had dinner with the “capriciously moody” Bill Murray and survived to tell the tale. [via Vulture]
Today at Flavorpill, we made a correlation between hip-hop and The Muppets and were amazed by how many airlines use bird imagery in their logos. Slate’s roundup of movie scenes featuring women in labor made us reach for the birth control, while in further ladyparts news, we cried laughing over Diablo Cody’s parody of “Hung” for Funny or Die. We were creeped out that this family didn’t realize they were living over a church and relived fonder movies with a list of the thirteen best HBO series of all time. We followed Hugo “Dictator” Chavez on Twitter (think he’ll return the favor?). We streamed Sleigh Bells’ new song “Tell ‘Em” and spent the rest of the day catching up on tunes featured in Treme. The top ten SNL gigglefests sent us straight back to middle school, and we were were charmed by Jenny Holzer’s anecdote that her daughter used to think all electronic signs were made by mom. Finally, we plan to hop, skip, and jump over to our pals at 20×200 to buy this limited edition print by Lawrence Weiner. You might remember his West Village home from a feature in Dwell this year, excerpted after the jump.
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The Shanghai World Expo has been conducting a trial run this week in advance of the opening on May 1. What is a World Expo? you may wonder. Well from what we can tell it involves a gigantic baby, a hefty helping of LCD lights, a pavilion or two, and interpretative dance.* Boston Globe’s Big Picture site has some most excellent pictures of the preparations at hand. Click through for a world vision that will knock your American socks off.
*Technically it’s a World’s Fair-type event that lasts six months, expects to host 100 million visitors, and costs more to throw than the Beijing Olympics. Way to show ‘em, Shanghai.
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Welcome to the latest edition of Design Porn, Flavorpill’s regular roundup of drool-worthy objects. Ah, the fresh smell and sneezy feeling of spring. This particular season — by some accounts miserably cold, rainy, and/or windy — has also brought record-breaking pollen counts and a democratic feeling to what only a lucky few usually experience. Coupled with earth, the building material of the future, have we got a trend piece for you: grass houses! We’ve got seven to ogle after the jump; please leave tips in the comments if we’ve missed any others of note.
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When Graydon Carter gets involved in a building rehabilitation effort, people tend to pay attention. People like the New York Observer‘s Eliot Brown, who chatted with numerous allies in the Vanity Fair EIC’s personal battle to help save the IRT Powerhouse building (currently housed by ConEd) on the far west side of Manhattan. Preservationists led by the Hudson River Powerhouse Group have been pushing to designate the McKim, Mead, and White building as a historic landmark since last summer after previous attempts fell flat in 1979 and 1990. Carter’s idea is to turn the 1904 classical-turned-industrial power station into a new home for the International Center for Photography. Museum director? Who knows, even Graydon’s got to retire someday…
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Holy time lapse sequence, Batman. Iceland’s most rupture-prone and least pronounceable volcano has spurred yet another cool fact-based internet visualization. This video neatly depicts flight patterns in European airspace before and after Eyjafjallajokull spewed ash across the sky; despite the air travel disruption, patterns resume apace, with some routes open on April 18 and business as usual by the 20th. Video after the jump.
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In one of the stranger op-eds we’ve read of late, art critic Martin Gayford writes for Bloomberg News about British painter David Hockney and his huge crush on Apple’s iPad. We hope the piece isn’t an insidious new marketing plan targeting art consumers with spending capital and is instead just an attempt by The Olds to show their adaptability. After all, if David Hockney can find a way to transport the “tricky” device with an awkward shape (he “has always had his suits made with a large internal jacket pocket for carrying sketch books”), so can you, you spry young thing. Wonder if Hockney’s trying to reinvent the swimming pool?
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1. Conan will likely “flirt with the restrictions” on not trash-talking NBC or Jay Leno when he does his first post-kerfuffle interview on this Sunday’s 60 Minutes. [via Vulture]
2. A whopping 810,500 visitors saw the Tim Burton retrospective at MoMA, the third highest attendance for the museum following its 1980 Picasso show (naturally) and a Matisse exhibition from 1992. [via ArtsBeat]
3. Gunning for a share of the AARP market, the WE network is launching “Sunset Daze,” a reality show based in a “bawdy” Arizona senior citizens community. Seriously, read this link. [via New York Times]
4. Sandra Bullock wages a war of PR niceties with a People mag exclusive on her adopted newborn son from New Orleans and impended divorce from cheatin’ husband Jesse James. [via People]
5. Newly minted tech blogger John Mayer weighs on with his opinion on Twitter: “Every night I think about canceling my Twitter account because I think it’s over to be honest with you.” [via E! Online]
Bonus link: A poetic ode to the Kentucky Derby, courtesy of Morning News contributor Andrea Cohen.
Today at Flavorpill, we wondered whether guerrilla artists eating meatballs out of potholes are madmen or geniuses. We drank our morning joe out of Mona Lisa coffee cup in solidarity with this installation and ogled more pictures taken by the Hubble space telescope. We wondered how good of a speller Marilyn Monroe was (or how awesome of an editor she must have had). We got super bummed to hear that Lily Humphrey/Bass/Van Der Woodsen/Rhodes might have An Illness, and cracked up at the cheesiest guitarists of all time. We were simultaneously impressed and skeeved out by this “chillingly precise” junior version of The Hills and thanked our lucky stars we’ve never gotten such a sassy intern application. (It would also be denied, and posted on the internet.) We were, yet again, disappointed in Courtney. And then we watched a mini-clip to promote the upcoming season of HBO’s True Blood, at which point we got rilly, rilly excitable again. See it after the jump.
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