The New Shorthand For Exacting Large Concessions From Deep Pockets Is They Are “Being A Good Neighbor”

If I have to read that this is about “being a good neighbor” one more time, I might be forced to paint my face blue and orange and barricade myself inside the local State Farm office with enough ammo to finally bring us a World Series championship. Shit, that was out loud:

Some council members say they want commitments that reflect or include what the Yankees made to the Bronx in exchange for support of their new ballpark. “They’re getting a huge tax break at the expense of New Yorkers, and I think it’s very appropriate for them to be a good neighbor,” said Bayside Councilman Tony Avella on the Mets financing proposal that includes $165 million in state and city funds and tax-exempt bonds for their $800-million ballpark.

So far, the Mets have rejected a $1 million request for community support, countering with a $200,000 offer, council members said. More meetings are expected in coming days, council member John Liu said.

A Bubble of Participatory Narcissism That It Will Be Pitiable to Have Missed

The New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl weighs in on The Gates:

Those who deplore “The Gates” as ugly aren’t wrong, just poor sports. The work’s charm-free, synthetic orange hue—saffron? no way—is something you would wear only in the woods during deer season, in order to avoid being shot. The nylon fabric is sullen to the touch. The proportions of the arches are graceless, and dogs alone esteem the clunky bases. As for the sometimes heard praise of the work for framing and, in the process, revealing unsuspected lovelinesses of the Park—C’mon, people! You don’t need artificial aids to notice things. “The Gates” does trigger beauty when, as on the aforementioned Sunday afternoon, a low sun backlights the fluttering fabric, which combusts like stained glass in a molten state. This effect lasts all of about two seconds—the time span suggested in the observation of the art historian Kenneth Clark that we can enjoy a purely aesthetic sensation for only as long as we can keenly savor the smell of a fresh-cut orange. (Yes, he said an orange.) “The Gates” succeeds precisely by being, on the whole, a big nothing. Comprehended at a glance, it lets us get right down to being crazy about ourselves, in a bubble of participatory narcissism that it will be pitiable to have missed.

I don’t have a problem with that reading of it!

Administrative Note: Remember “A bubble of participatory narcissism that it will be pitiable to have missed” for future reference!

Metropolitan Diary Shorthand

Nothing especially snarky to say about today’s Metropolitan Diary (What? Snarky — us? Never . . .) except that a deft turn of phrase in one of the anecdotes unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly — these New Yorkers, so meta and smart about shit like that!) reveals new shorthand for the feature itself: “All was right on East 88th Street.”

For posterity’s sake, here is the full anecdote:

Dear Diary:

I am the secretary at the Church of the Holy Trinity on East 88th Street, and on the Saturday of the recent blizzard I was helping with last-minute preparations for a party that evening for our departing interim rector. I was also worried that far fewer people than expected would come because of the snow and anticipated wind.

I stepped out on the porch of the parish house to take a breather and delight in the snow-covered dogwood and magnolia. Three corpulent (or very bundled) well-into-middle-age women came up the walkway. One was in a wheelchair. I was prepared to tell them that our Saturday Thrift Shop closed at 3:30, but they went away from the building, onto a path that even on good days is difficult: It is narrow, it has slate tiles, and it meanders. Why, I wondered, were they pushing a wheelchair on this path in this weather?

I got my answer when they stopped in front of a snow-covered bench. On the count of three, two of the women helped the one in the wheelchair up and plopped her on the snow- covered lawn. She sat upright for a couple of seconds, then lay down and started to make a snow angel, flapping her “wings.” After much giggling, the other two women helped back in her wheelchair. Then they plopped onto the lawn and made their angels. More giggling. Lots of it.

The snow kept falling. The people came to the party. All was right on East 88th Street.

Jeff Koons’ Birthday Party

We might have new shorthand for “kooky excess,” now defined as Jeff Koons’ 50th Birthday, as reported by Talk of the Town:

And then the garage doors opened, and in trooped the marching band of Burlington City High School, in Burlington, New Jersey, wearing navy-blue uniforms and feathered shakos and producing on their instruments a deafening version of “Happy Birthday.” They were followed, a few minutes later, by a pair of white ponies pulling a cart with a three-tiered white cake, out of which popped a girl in a skimpy red bathing suit. [Deitch Projects gallery owner Jeffrey] Deitch had tried to get Jeff’s friend Pamela Anderson for the cake duty, but she had to be at the Sundance Film Festival.

A Generous Gesture Bound to Look Good on Videotape

U2 played a surprise concert yesterday at Fulton Ferry State Park, next to the Brooklyn Bridge. Don’t miss Jon Pareles’ bemused reporting in the Times article, “Word of a Free Concert, Next to an Oft-Sold Bridge, Spreads Quickly”:

U2 played a not-so-secret free concert yesterday afternoon at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park on the bank of the East River in Brooklyn. For slightly more than an hour, with the Brooklyn Bridge overhead and the lights of downtown Manhattan as a backdrop, the band played songs from its new album, “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” and a few older songs to thousands of well-behaved fans ready to shout “Yeah!” or clap along at any cue from Bono.

The concert was the culmination of a well-orchestrated video shoot that doubled as a publicity stunt for the Irish band. Through the afternoon, the four members of U2 were set up on the back of a flatbed truck. They were plugged in and performing the band’s next single, “All Because of You” as the truck’s route wound downtown from the Upper West Side, trailed by a helicopter for aerial shots.

. . .

The concert will be telecast by MTV on Dec. 8. But Bono played to the local audience, adding references to Brooklyn to some lyrics. “Why does this feel like a hometown concert?” he asked, to cheers. For an encore, U2 played a triumphal second take of “Vertigo.” As one lyric went “All of this can be yours,” Bono turned to the skyline, then changed it for the occasion: “All of this is yours,” he proclaimed with a grin. Like the concert itself, it was a generous gesture that is bound to look good on videotape.

(Note to self: remember phrase “a generous gesture that is bound to look good on videotape” for future use!)

Bonus point: Overheard in New York’s “Something Bloody Something”.