Kurt Cobain's Ashes Stolen

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix


According to the News Of The World, the Nirvana frontman's [Kurt Cobain] remains – the location of which has previously been kept secret – were taken from the Los Angeles home of his widow Courtney Love.

The ashes were said to have been kept in a "pink teddy bear-shaped bag along with a lock of his hair" and were taken with some jewellery and clothes. -- NME

Love believes a former friend is responsible for swiping Kurt's remain... -- Guardian

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening"

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Plot: A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity.

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune wrote in his review of the film, "After the insufferably dense mermaid mythology of Lady in the Water, Shyamalan clearly wanted to keep things simple. He whizzed straight past simple to simplistic."

TRAILER

Phony Weed at MTV Movie Awards

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Drunk Woman Drives the Wrong Way on Tappan Zee

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix

By Theresa Juva\LoHud

An Eastchester woman went the wrong way through the toll plaza on the Tappan Zee Bridge early yesterday and crossed most of the 3-mile span without crashing into oncoming traffic, state police said.

Kathleen M. Beaton, 28, was stopped by troopers about 3 a.m. on the causeway near the Rockland County shore, police said.

Beaton was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, after she failed a field sobriety test and recorded a blood-alcohol level of 0.20 percent - more than twice the legal limit, said Sgt. Kenneth Cano of the state police at Tarrytown.

Cano said several motorists alerted police that a 2007 Honda was traveling north in the southbound lanes of the bridge.

Beaton is due in Grand View Village Court on June 30.

Bluefly Bag in "Sex and the City"

4th\SW Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Lindsay of the blog Videogum posted that the Bluefly bag must have been a product placement in the movie, because, "bluefly.com is a website and presumably would not send items in bags -- unless it was product placement."

Journey Returns with New Filipino lead singer

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Arnel Pineda - Journey on ELLEN

Partial Remains of Pringles Can Inventor Buried in Can

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

The man who designed the Pringles potato chip packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic cans.

Fredric J. Baur, of Cincinnati, died May 4 at Vitas Hospice in Cincinnati, his family said. He was 89.

Baur's children said they honored his request to bury him in one of the cans by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township.

The rest of his remains were placed in an urn buried along with the can, with some placed in another urn and given to a grandson, said Baur's daughter, Linda Baur of Diamondhead, Mississippi. -- CNN

"Sex and the City" Box Office Sales

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix


By Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Early fears that romantic comedies could not travel overseas were somewhat assuaged over the weekend as New Line's "Sex and the City" surged to the top of the international market...

In its second weekend, "Sex" edged out "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," pulling in $37.6 million from 5,708 screens in 40 markets compared with $36.5 million for the Paramount tent pole title's third round on 7,519 screens in 53 territories. "Sex" reached an international gross to date of $91.5 million while "Indy" hit a lusty $325.1 million.

In Australia, where "Sex" debuted at No. 1 with $7.5 million, pirates served as indicators of what's hot at the box office when police raided two retailers in Sydney that were selling pirated copies of the film two days before the opening. Many theatres in major Aussie cities reported sell-out audiences on opening day, with a number of showings in movie houses that normally play art-house fare.

In Hong Kong, where the film was categorized as restricted to persons over 18, about 75 percent of the audience were women in their 30s and 40s who dressed up for the occasion and attended in groups, according to Joe Li, manager of the IFC Palace Theatre in central Hong Kong's multinational business hub.

"Sex" opened at No. 1 in 16 of its 25 new openings, including Greece, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia and Lithuania.

Jessica Valenti's "He's a Stud, She's a Slut"

3rd\SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Product Description: Double standards are nothing new. Women deal with them every day. Take the common truism that women who sleep around are sluts while men are studs. Why is it that men grow distinguished and sexily gray as they age while women just get saggy and haggard? Have you ever wondered how a young woman is supposed to both virginal and provocatively enticing at the same time? Isn’t it unfair that working moms are labeled “bad” for focusing on their careers while we shake our heads in disbelief when we hear about the occasional stay-at-home dad?

In 50 Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism, calls out the double standards that affect every woman. Whether Jessica is pointing out the wage earning discrepancies between men and women or revealing all of the places that women still aren’t equal to their male counterparts—be it in the workplace, courtroom, bedroom, or home—she maintains her signature wittily sarcastic tone. With sass, humor, and in-your-face facts, this book informs and equips women with the tools they need to combat sexist comments, topple ridiculous stereotypes (girls aren’t good at math?), and end the promotion of lame double standards. -- Amazon

Bo Diddley 1928 – 2008

3rd/SE Quadrant The Approval Matrix



Bo Diddley, the musical pioneer whose songs, such as "Who Do You Love?" and "Bo Diddley," melded rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll through a distinctive thumping beat, has died. He was 79.

Diddley died Monday, surrounded by family and loved ones at his home in Archer, Florida, a family spokeswoman said.

The cause was heart failure, his family said.

Bo Diddley was one of rock 'n' roll's true pioneers," said Neil Portnow, president and CEO of The Recording Academy, the music industry organization best known for presenting the Grammy Awards. "He inspired legions of musicians with his trademark rhythm ..., and his song 'Bo Diddley' earned a rightful place in the Grammy Hall Of Fame. He leaves an indelible mark on American music and culture, and our deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends and fans. The 'Bo Diddley beat' surely will continue on." -- CNN

Jane and Micheal Stern's "Times" review of Patricia and Walter Wells' Book

2nd\NE Quadrant The Appproval Matrix

From Jane and Micheal Stern's New York Times review of Patricia and Walter Wells' “We’ve Always Had Paris ... and Provence”

"A memoir is intrinsically self-centered, at best offering a fresh vision of the world through other eyes, at worst reading like an overlong Christmas letter. Patricia Wells’s recipes, which follow every chapter, are indeed delicious and unusual, some so evocative that you can practically smell the lavender fields outside the kitchen window and feel the chill of the mistral. Appearances of Robuchon, Julia Child and a Provençal truffle hunter are frothy peaks in the story. But when the Wellses focus on themselves the cream curdles. The book is overloaded with pictures of them separately and together, beaming out at us with politicians’ pasted-on smiles, perfectly outfitted for a night on the town or a morning in the garden, always looking just right and manically happy. It is not just the canned pictures that make it difficult to relate to our omnipresent bibliohosts the way it is so easy to do in such disarming memoirs as Peter Mayle’s “Year in Provence” and Adam Gopnik’s “From Paris to the Moon.” They write like ad men trying to sell readers on the excellence of their self-proclaimed fantasy lives, from the distinctive wines they make to Patricia’s triumphs as a long-distance runner. Without irony, Walter quotes the cookbook editor Maria Guarnaschelli observing their shopping habits in France: “You originated the Dean & DeLuca lifestyle.” He then sincerely boasts that their lifestyle is even better than that, because the excellent butcher delivers their leg of lamb to Patricia’s car, “parked far away.” What might have been a delicious invitation to a banquet winds up reading like a brochure for an expensive gated community."

Yves Saint Laurent Dies at 71

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix


By ANNE-MARIE SCHIRO\New York Times

Yves Saint Laurent, who exploded on the fashion scene in 1958 as the boy-wonder successor to Christian Dior and endured as one of the best-known and most influential couturiers of the second half of the 20th century, died on Sunday at his apartment in Paris. He was 71.

During a career that ran from 1957 to 2002 he was largely responsible for changing the way modern women dress, putting them into pants both day and night, into peacoats and safari jackets, into “le smoking” (as the French call a man’s tuxedo jacket), and into leopard prints, trench coats and, for a time in the 1970s, peasant-inspired clothing in rich fabrics.

Mr. Saint Laurent achieved instant fame in 1958 at the age of 21 when he showed his Trapeze collection, his first for Christian Dior following the master’s death. But unlike many overnight sensations, Mr. Saint Laurent managed to remain at the top of his profession as fashion changed from an emphasis on formal, custom-made haute couture to casual sportswear.

“Concerto DSCH”

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Paul Kolnik/New York City Ballet

By ALASTAIR MACAULAY\New York Times

As “Concerto DSCH,” the new ballet by Alexei Ratmansky for New York City Ballet, unfolded at its premiere on Thursday night, you could feel wave upon wave of emotion sweeping across the audience. Wonder, excitement, admiration, affection, hilarity, surprise, exhilaration.

“Concerto DSCH” is an endlessly suspenseful choreographic construction, with passages of breathtaking dance brilliance. Again and again, you find yourself thinking, “I didn’t realize this was going to happen after that,” and “What exactly were those steps that flashed by just now?” Better yet, it’s marked by tender pure-dance poetry.

From the first it creates a world onstage, a world that keeps changing, enthrallingly, before our eyes. Its proceedings abound in classical pattern, design and formal structure, yet at the same time they’re full of very informal human touches (as when three virtuosos, taking a break at the back of the stage, sit and watch the action with happy inelegance). The dancers’ relationships keep starting to suggest stories, though the dance then sweeps unstoppably on.

Never Contacted Tribe

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Brazil's government agreed to release stunning photos of Amazon Indians firing arrows at an airplane so that the world can better understand the threats facing one of the few tribes still living in near-total isolation from civilization, officials said Friday.

Anthropologists have known about the group for some 20 years but released the images now to call attention to fast-encroaching development near the Indians' home in the dense jungles near Peru.

"We put the photos out because if things continue the way they are going, these people are going to disappear," said Jose Carlos Meirelles, who coordinates government efforts to protect four "uncontacted" tribes for Brazil's National Indian Foundation.

Brazil's National Indian Foundation believes there may be as many as 68 "uncontacted" groups around Brazil, although only 24 have been officially confirmed. Anthropologists say almost all of these tribes know about western civilization and have sporadic contact with prospectors, rubber tappers and loggers, but choose to turn their backs on civilization, usually because they have been attacked.

"It's a choice they made to remain isolated or maintain only occasional contacts, but these tribes usually obtain some modern goods through trading with other Indians," said Bernardo Beronde, an anthropologist who works in the region.

Brazilian officials once tried to contact such groups. Now they try to protectively isolate them.
-- ABC

Newtown Creek "Eggs" Illuminated

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

New York City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Emily Lloyd joined members of the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee (NCMC) tonight to celebrate the lighting of the digester "eggs" at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn. The lighting arrangement was designed by the French design firm L'Observatoire International as part of the upgrade of the plant. The illuminated eggs will be visible from vantage points in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan and will serve as a landmark for travelers on the Long Island Expressway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Kosciusko Bridge, among other locations.

"It is thrilling to see form and function beautifully expressed in the structure we are illuminating tonight," said DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd. "Each evening we will be reminded of the elegant combination of engineering and art in the blue aura of the structure."

The digesters will process up to 1.5 million gallons of sludge everyday. Each egg, clad with low reflectivity stainless steel, is 145 feet high and 80 feet in diameter.

"It is thrilling to see form and function beautifully expressed in the structure we are illuminating tonight," said DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd. "Each evening we will be reminded of the elegant combination of engineering and art in the blue aura of the structure." -- NYC