Framing art is notoriously pricey, so much so that Jim and I have been squirreling away money to do it. We were lucky to find the little shop Imagic Studio down the street (where we got our hideous passport photos taken), to be reasonable, helpful, and efficient. Our walls have been bare since we moved into this place, but no longer!

With the help of Jim's dad our bedroom is now home to an adorable BB&PP Inc print and our old WR: Myteries of the Organism and Godard posters hang in the living room with our newly framed Eggleston poster (I found a guy that sells subway posters and ads if you're ever interested). A huge (67″ tall!) print is at the shop as we speak and, despite the high price tag, it will all be worth it. After all, these are pieces we'll have forever.

We decided in the end to forgo the expense for our over sized Blood Beach and Joysticks posters and are currently on the lookout for a cheaper solution. A friend recommended pictureframes.com.

See more: Spend a Couple Hours Art Home/Self Improvements

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Posted on May 11, 2009

I really just don't make it out to the Bronx very often, and I don't think many people who live outside that neighborhood do. It seems to have held on to its seventies era dangerous reputation through the years, but I experienced a whole other, dreamy, bright sunny hazed side of the borough after a recent trip to Wave Hill.

The sidewalk was steaming, hundreds of kids were on the playground in their summer shorts, an ice cream truck was blaring its tune on the corner. It was a quintessential Bronx moment, and possibly how I'll now think of the borough forever… along with cheap, excellent bahn mi.

I read about a place on Jerome Avenue on Chowhound, which led me to this extensive piece on The Porkchop Express. As rabid bahn mi fans (trendiness be damned) our interested was highly peaked. We found the address easily enough, but found a different but similar restaurant to great us.

Now called World of Taste Seafood, the red and yellow corner shop still serves large, over stuffed, perfectly seasoned sandwiches at a mere $3.50 a pop. A gracious, smiling woman makes them herself, leaving you lots of time to peruse the sparse refrigerators for unique, over sweet foreign sodas.

We grabbed the pork version of the sandwich (the rest were sold out) to go and paired it will some crisp, summer beers. Yummy. It's not a place you go for ambiance, but I'd return for the service and to try more of the great food.

See more: Restaurants Bronx Vietnamese

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Posted on May 11, 2009

A voice this silky smooth is reason enough to place Al Green on the major hunks list but, despite the fact that he now looks most like a personable wedding singer (hey, we'll all get old), he was once in possession of a body like this and a smile to melt hearts to boot.

He's become more well known through popular soundtracks in recent years, thanks to Tarantino and Miss Coppola, but in his hey-day he was a sensation that many people listened to while making old time lovin'.

See more: Hunks Musicians

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Posted on May 11, 2009

With a recognizable cast (horror movie king and Halloween alumni Donald Pleasance and a pre-Labyrinthine long legged Jennifer Connelly), and a big name soundtrack (both Iron Maiden and Motorhead contribute songs, though it's Argento stand-by and personal source of undying love, Goblin, that create the most eerie music), Phenomena is one of Dario Argento's most accessible films, though strangely (and unfairly), it's also one of his most under-viewed.

But don't let my description fool you, the director certainly hasn't gone too Hollywood; there's still plenty of uneven pacing, in-cohesiveness, maggots, and borderline ludicrous over-dubbing: “Do you take… do you understand?.. DRUGS?” asks the super hot Swiss Headmistress.

Argento has claimed that this tale of a poor little rich girl who has a supernatural control of and mutual love for insects (at one point a bug is put an excited mating frenzy just by her touch) is his personal favorite (even though I favor, as most fans do, Suspiria). The plot concerns Connelly's unusual power which, with the aid of a local entomologist and his chimp (for all you Lance Link fans), leads the frequently night gown only clad heroine on a quest to find the identity of a local killer on the loose.

The film almost feels like three movies in one, lots of bang for your giallo buck, and features images that stay in your subconscious. I often think of the swiss chalet where a Dutch tourist “looses her head” and the crazy creepiness that's revealed behind a child's tears. Plus, Connelly is dressed in perfect rich girl mid eighties attire throughout.

See more: Movies 1980s Horror

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Posted on May 11, 2009

It's no secret that The Fashion Show is the fashioned by Tresemme clone of Project Runway. Terribly self conscious of that fact, Isaac Mizrahi (who I still adore) and Kelly Rowlands (who I never did, and care even less for now – but more on her later) tip toe around the long shadows of Heidi and Tim. Instead of calling out a trademarked catch-phrase like “gather round”, Mizrahi has to stammer out, “Come here around me” to the contestants.

Even the sewing rooms look exactly the same, though the judging panel puts the judges on the opposite side of the stage and for whatever reason forces them to huddle and conspire in a hallway like gossiping girls cutting class as they debate which contestant will hear the uninspired send-off, “Sorry, we're not buying” in place of “You're out” and “Bye bye darling” instead of “Auverderzien”.

The show really could have benefited from an attempt to establish its own identity, because there are some good things here. Firstly, one of my friends from college is a contestant. Root for Anna! She's the one who looks Amazonian and strikingly sane amid the sea of freaks. Merlin is so over the top and flamboyant that he's nearly nauseating just to look at; when he gleefully announced to a hushed room that, “The woorl is run by beetches!” I wanted to hide someplace far away from my television. There are other caricatures here too who come in varying degrees of bitchy, swishy, and cocky but they pale in the shadows of Merlin's feathered hat.

On the plus side, the challenges are actually pretty good so far, better than some of the weaker late season PR efforts. I think Mizrahi, despite emphasizing his bitchy, non nurturing (read un-Tim Gunn) edge can offer a lot of good criticism and knows what he's talking about. However Kelly Rowlands, a natural born mumbler, seems only able to say, “I wouldn't be caught dead in that” and manages to make all her lines sound as if they come from the tenth plus take on a very long shooting day. I have no idea why they hired such a charmless wonder.

She explains her credentials up front as having worn lots of fashionable clothes and having been seated in the front row of some show; but considering that she really means wearing and viewing the horrendous showboaty glamour of Beyonce's mom's House of Der?on, her ostensible assets are more like hindrances. Oh, what I wouldn't give (since their going the bitchy route anyway), to have Sandra Bernhard as the co-host!

See more: TV Shows 2000s Reality Style

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Posted on May 11, 2009