"Gotham City"

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

Queens Councilman, Hiram Monserrate wants us to officially stake claim on the "Gotham City" title, and is pushing the City Council to designate it as our chief nickname (preferably before The Dark Knight is released this summer). He says, “I see that as a marketing tool, ‘Come visit the real Gotham City,’ taking advantage of this movie which will be one of those gate-breaking, record-selling movies like it always is.”

While the Gotham we know from Batman is corrupt and gritty, Monserrate says, “When we talk about Gotham we talk about tremendous, tremendous nightlife, restaurants, lounges, clubs and cafes, frappuccinos...". Pretty sure Batman was never spotted sipping a Starbucks frappuccino (though perhaps Bruce Wayne could be imagined in such a scenario).
-- Gothamist

Canseco Accuses A-Rod

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


As for Alex Rodriguez, Canseco says [in "VINDICATED"] he didn't inject Rodriguez, but that he "introduced Alex to a known supplier of steroids." Canseco didn't mention Rodriguez in the first book because he "hated the bastard." He was worried that people would have "questioned [his] motives" had he included Rodriguez.

Why all the hatred, you ask. Well, Canseco claims that A-Rod was trying to sleep with Canseco's wife. Apparently, even after Canseco had been nice enough to help A-Rod find a friendly steroids supplier, A-Rod kept calling Canseco's wife.

And, in case there's any further confusion about Canseco's true feelings, he ends the chapter by saying:

So A-Rod, if you're reading this book, and if I'm not getting through to you, let's get clear on one thing: I hate your fucking guts.
-- Deadspin

"The Goosebumps Series" Returns

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


After an eight-year hiatus, R.L. Stine, the Stephen King of the middle school set, is back with a new "Goosebumps" series.

Born in Mississippi but now a New Yorker, Stine made a big splash in the 1990s with "Goosebumps," a collection of more than 60 children's novels that are often violent and macabre. In fact, the series was on the American Library Association's 1990-99 list of the 100 most frequently challenged books. But so were "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker and J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in Rye."

The latest two Goosebumps books (Scholastic; $5.99 each; ages 8-12) herald the coming of 10 more. Each will give the reader a book in two parts. The first part may bring back an original villain and the story that spawned him or it may introduce a new bad guy.
-- Post Gazette

"Run, Fatboy, Run"

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


Dennis is a clueless and slightly overweight guy, who left his pregnant fiancée five years earlier. Every day, Dennis tries to persuade the woman he loves to accept him back into his life, but everyday he fails. When he discovers that Libby has found a partner in the form of American Whit, frustration grows, and Dennis vows, that for once in his life, he will finish something. This something ends up being a Nike River-run in London. With his friends Gordon and Mr. Ghoshdashtidar by his side, Dennis begins training for the marathon he must finish.
-- IMBb\Written by FilmFanUK

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America's Best Dance Crew

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

America's Best Dance Crew is an American television show featuring street dance crews from the United States. The show is produced by American Idol judge Randy Jackson, and airs on MTV in the United States and MuchMusic in Canada.[2] In the first season, it was hosted by Mario Lopez and featured Layla Kayleigh as the backstage correspondent. It was judged by rapper Lil Mama, former *NSYNC singer JC Chasez, and hip-hop choreographer Shane Sparks.[3][4] The series was originally developed for NBC. JabbaWockeeZ was declared the winner of season 1 on March 27, 2008. It was announced that there will be a Season 2 coming this summer, with the live auditions being on June 7th. -- Wikipedia

The JabbaWockeeZ's Winning Performance

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

"Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print"

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

"Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770–1900" presents more than seventy prints from the renowned Van Vleck collection of Japanese woodblock prints at the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison and approximately twenty prints from the Brooklyn Museum. The Utagawa School, founded by Utagawa Toyoharu, dominated the Japanese print market in the nineteenth century and is responsible for more than half of all surviving ukiyo-e prints, or “pictures of the floating world.” Colorful, technically innovative, and sometimes defiant of government regulations, these prints were created for a popular audience and documented the pleasures of urban life and leisure. The prints represent famous places, landscapes, warriors, and kabuki actors; they were reproduced in books, posters, and other printed materials for mass consumption, and they fed a thriving Edo publishing industry.

March 21–June 15, 2008 Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st Floor Brooklyn Museum

Joan Cummins, coordinator of our presentation of "Utagawa" and the Museum's Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator of Asian Art, gives an overview of the exhibition.

"Horton Hears a Who!"

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

Plot Summary: One day, Horton the elephant hears a cry from help coming from a speck of dust. Even though he can't see anyone on the speck, he decides to help it. As it turns out, the speck of dust is home to the Whos, who live in their city of Whoville. Horton agrees to help protect the Whos and their home, but this gives him nothing but torment from his neighbors, who refuse to believe that anything could survive on the speck. Still, Horton stands by the motto that, "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small."
-- IMDb\Written by Griffin84

Roger Stone Nixon Tattoo

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

Roger J. Stone Jr., who has referred to politics as “performance art,” is a longtime Republican consultant known for hardball politics and a cloak-and-dagger sensibility. He started out as a teenager in the campaign of Richard M. Nixon, and has a tattoo of the former president’s head on his back.

Mr. Stone was fired as a consultant to New York State Senate Republicans in the summer of 2007 after allegations arose that he had left a threatening voice mail message for former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer’s father, Bernard. Mr. Stone has denied making the call.

On March 23, 2007, Mr. Stone said that his lawyers wrote a letter to the F.B.I. in November stating that Governor Spitzer had patronized high-priced prostitutes during trips to Florida.
-- New York Times

"History's 10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives"

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

Cracked.com's "History's 10 Most Terrifying Contraceptives"

10. Weasel Testicles
9. Diaphragms ... Made of Crocodile Poo
8. Beaver Testicles, With Alcohol
7. Mercury
6. Diaphragms of Gold and Silver
5. Animal Intestines
4. Diaphragms of Opium
3. Lemons
2. Blacksmith water
1. Coca-Cola Douche

"Sweeney Todd" on DVD

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

Plot Summary: After being sent away by Judge Turpin, Sweeney Todd a.k.a Benjamin Barker returns to London with the help of a sailor, Anthony Hope. He opens a barber shop above Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Shop, where she sells "the worst pies in London." With the help of Mrs. Lovett, Todd means to rid London of the corrupt aristocracy, and hopes to be reunited with his daughter, Johanna, who is now Judge Turpin's ward. -- IMDb

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"Bush's War"

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge -- for seven years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence.

Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush's War. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk draws on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism -- more than 40 FRONTLINE reports on Iraq and the war on terror. Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history.

"Parts of this history have been told before," Kirk says. "But no one has laid out the entire narrative to reveal in one epic story the scope and detail of how this war began and how it has been fought, both on the ground and deep inside the government."
-- PBS

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Anna Wintour Denounces Too-Thin Models

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


By New York Mag

Is the age of the pale, nondescript waif model almost over? According to Anna Wintour's letter in the April shape issue of Vogue, it ought to be. She explains she chose Gisele Bündchen for the cover because she's remained "athletic and curvaceous (by the standards of the modeling business)." Wintour continues:

I wish I could say the same for the young women who were just on the runways at the New York fall collections. Overall, they were pale and thin, and entirely lacking in the joyfulness and charm that once defined the supermodel. This, of course, is not their fault: Designers now near-uniformly favor a non-vivacious, homogenous ideal.

It's a strange time in the fashion industry. Our top talents, usually so adept at anticipating their public's preoccupations and desires appear to me to be utterly disconnected from the cultural stream. Surely, given the upcoming summer Olympics in Beijing and the significant attention lavished on pro sports heroes, it would be the right moment to celebrate healthy toned physiques....I would urge designers to consider athleticism and vitality as assets in the wearing of great fashion.

Maryinsky Ballet Donkey Retires

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008

A zoo employee feeds Monika the donkey at St. Petersburg's zoo on Monday. (Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters)

After 19 years with the Maryinsky Ballet Company of St. Petersburg, Russia, Monika the donkey, above, has retired, Reuters reported. At a farewell party given by the Maryinsky, Monika, 21, waltzed with one of the company’s ballerinas and was given a carrot cake, a pinafore and a kerchief. Monika’s principal role was in “Don Quixote,” carrying Quixote’s overweight servant, Sancho Panza. “She loves to perform, and she loves applause,” said Tatyana Solomatina, a spokeswoman for the St. Petersburg zoo, which is home to Monika between performances. “She knew the exact time to appear in the ballet, even without someone accompanying her.” Monika will be succeeded by Alina.
-- New York Times

"THE TEN YEAR NAP"

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


From Publishers Weekly: In her latest novel, Wolitzer (The Wife; etc.) takes a close look at the opt out generation: her cast of primary characters have all abandoned promising careers (in art, law and academia) in favor of full-time motherhood. When their children were babies, that decision was defensible to themselves and others; 10 years on, all of these women, whose interconnected stories merge during their regular breakfasts at a Manhattan restaurant, harbor hidden doubts. Do their mundane daily routines and ever-more tenuous connections to increasingly independent children compensate for all that lost promise? Wolitzer centers her narrative on comparisons between her smart but bored modern-day New York and suburban mommies and the women of the generation preceding them, who fought for women's liberation and equality. Contemporary chapters, most of which focus on a single character in this small circle of friends, alternate with vignettes from earlier eras, placing her characters' crises in the context of the women, famous and anonymous, who came before. Wolitzer's novel offers a hopeful, if not exactly optimistic, vision of women's (and men's) capacity for reinvention and the discovery of new purpose.

You can read the first chapter here.

$35 Movie Tickets

1st\NW Quadrant The Approval Matrix: Week of April 7, 2008


Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas is building 50 new super-premium theaters across the nation, with leather armchairs, valet parking, and chairside waiters who serve freshly prepared sushi and other seat-treats. Tickets will cost $35.

Each complex will sport theaters featuring 40 reclining armchair seats with footrests, digital projection and the capability to screen 2-D and 3-D movies, as well as a lounge and bar serving cocktails and appetizers, a concierge service and valet parking.

But the circuit will especially push its culinary offerings — made-to-order meals like sushi and other theater-friendly foods from on-site chefs (a service button at each seat calls a waiter). Moviegoers will have to pay extra for any food they order, however. -- boingboing