Jock Art

Move over Peter Max! The New York Art World is now at the forefront of Jock Art, a bizarro movement in which a Jugs Football Machine becomes performance art! No one ever figured fielding punts could be so outre:

Last Sunday, Tim Laun crouched down behind his Jugs Football Machine, a large blue metal tripod with two whirling white tires on top, and loaded a National Football League-size Wilson ball into the breach. With a single swift motion and sudden thwap, the ball was arcing over the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Queens: a perfect imitation of the trajectory of an N.F.L. punt. Four and a half seconds later, the ball thudded onto a square of freshly sodded grass painted with hash marks, like a swatch from a football field, as a group of neighborhood kids watched in perplexed wonder.

Tim Laun with his “Hang Time,” a performance-art piece.

“I love seeing that perfect arc and perfect spiral,” Mr. Laun said a little dreamily, as he loaded another Wilson into the machine.

Though the act of firing footballs with a Jugs machine takes place routinely on the practice fields of America as a way of training punt returners, his project is not a mundane part of preseason practice. To hear Mr. Laun, a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan from Wisconsin and an adjunct professor of art at Hunter College, tell it, it is a work of art: one with a specific title: “Hang Time.” As part of an exhibition called “Sport” at the sculpture park, Mr. Laun is firing football after football into the blue sky with the Empire State Building and the East River in the background. Those willing to sign a waiver can attempt to catch the machine-generated punts. But if no one is around, Mr. Laun is content to fire his footballs to no one at all.

“It’s that suspended moment in the game when no one can touch the ball,” Mr. Laun said as another ball sailed skyward. “And that person waiting and looking for the ball, they look like the depictions of rapture in Renaissance paintings.”

Boo Freakin’ Hoo, Lady!

I can’t decide if this story was worth registering at the Post for:

A Queens couple claims their daughter’s memories of elementary school have been marred by a “horrible” yearbook photo, and are demanding the school recall all 200 books and replace the picture.

Michelle Maihepat, of South Ozone Park, said her 11-year-old daughter, Asheana, is so embarrassed by the “bad picture” that she has been crying and hiding her face in shame from her sixth-grade classmates at PS 121 since the yearbooks were distributed Monday.

“For the rest of her life, she’s going to have to be ashamed of that horrible picture,” Maihepat said.

“Twenty years down the line, she’s going to look at this book with her friends, and her friends are going to say, ‘What happened to you there?'”

If the Post keeps writing Onion-worthy stories like this, I might have to check them more often! This, for example — too much:

A teary-eyed Asheana said the episode has upset her so much that she has decided to skip graduation next week.

The family says anything less than a total recall is not good enough, reasoning that the yearbook is Asheana’s legacy among all her classmates at PS 121.

“Who knows, one day she might be famous or have a lot of money and someone could blackmail her with that picture,” Maihepat said.

Service, Dammit!

Police and residents are saying that the main suspect accused of killing a Chinatown diner this week is a businessman from New Jersey who had some sort of financial dispute with the victim. Obviously the best method of negotiation in such a case is to shooting the other party in the nuts:

The New Jersey man shot and killed in a Chinatown restaurant on Wednesday was supposed to be building a restaurant financed by the wealthy businessman who shot him, the authorities said yesterday.

The victim, Ming Wang, was shot several times as he sat waiting for his food at the Yung Sun Seafood Restaurant at 47 East Broadway early Wednesday evening. The shooting followed a dispute the men had about the restaurant project, authorities said.

The police were still searching for the suspect last night, and have not officially released his name. But investigators and residents of Chinatown identified him as Sau Yung Cheng, 50, of Hamilton, a suburb of Trenton. He is also known by the name Allen Cheng.

. . .

On Wednesday, Mr. Wang walked into the Yung Sun Seafood Restaurant before 6 p.m., and sat down with a couple sitting near the door of the restaurant, the police said. They said that after a brief, heated exchange, the couple walked out of the restaurant. A short time later, the man returned and shot Mr. Wang four to eight times, wounding him in his head, back, arm and groin. Then he ran, and disappeared into Chinatown.

There is something gritty and film noir-like about “disappearing into Chinatown.” Nice flourish! Of course it’s not like Gangs of New York anymore, and the suspect was traced back to his home of Hamilton, where furious customers demanded to know why the Chinese people weren’t open because, you know, Chinese places are open every day — even Christmas:

No one answered the door yesterday at Mr. Cheng’s house in Hamilton, and the BMW that neighbors said he usually drove was not outside. Neighbors said the local police had been at the house. A restaurant in Hamilton owned by Mr. Cheng was closed yesterday, and confused customers could be seen peering into the darkened windows.

“I want some sushi,” said John Abatto, 47, who lives in Hamilton. “He should have had his workers open the restaurant.”

Dude is on the lam and you think he should open shop? Now that’s service!

You Mean That’s Offensive?

Had we only sculptor Eric Fischl’s “Tumbling Woman” — dayenu! Had we only Sharon Paz’s falling silhouettes in Jamaica, Queens — dayenu! But no, it wasn’t enough! The Daily News takes up the case:

A Brooklyn artist evoked the images of people who leaped to their deaths from the World Trade Center by repeatedly jumping off a Chicago musuem – outraging the families of some 9/11 victims.

Kerry Skarbakka, who wore a safety harness under his clothes, told the Daily News that Tuesday’s stunt was his way of asking questions about what went through the minds of those who jumped from the towers and others who watched helplessly.

But some people who lost loved ones in the terror attacks told The News they were disgusted by the very idea of Skarbakka’s “art” project.

“What kind of sick individual is he?” asked Rosemarie Giallombardo of Midwood, Brooklyn, who lost her son, Paul Salvio, on 9/11. “Tell him to go jump off the Empire State Building and see how it feels. He’s an artist? Go paint a bowl of fruit or something.”

Slow Death By Slurpee

Even as it cannibalizes its own past, New York remains steadfastly opposed to the “continuing corporatization” of rustic Manhattan. Yet the hopelessly provincial still cannot stop 7-Eleven from penetrating the moat:

For a swath of America, nothing says summer like a Slurpee from 7-Eleven.

But Manhattan has always been an island unto its own, so the imminent opening of a 7-Eleven on Park Ave. South and 23rd St. – the first in the borough in more than a decade – isn’t exactly being treated as the next big thing.

“I’d much rather have a coco gelato,” said model Kristine Szabo, strolling down Park Ave.

A 7-Eleven is an unlikely backdrop for her walk, but as she said yesterday, “Why not? There’s already everything else here. It’s a lost cause.”

The “lost cause” is the continuing corporatization of Manhattan, as mom-and-pop drugstores are replaced by Duane Reades and coffee shops have all become Starbucks.

For some, however, the Vermontization of Manhattan has no appeal:

. . . [N]ot everyone is so disdainful of the 7-Elevens.

Marcos Rodriguez, 23, of Corona, Queens, is a club promoter who’s happy a 7-Eleven’s coming to town, and not just because “they have everything.”

Does a 7-Eleven ruin the character of the city? “No,” he said. “These little newspaper stands and stuff, they ruin the character. Makes the street ugly.”