And Metatron said - let there be mugs
Snoochie Boochies!
I hope everybody’s keeping cool out there! My two chonky cats have been splooting very frequently lately, which is a telltale sign that it’s hotter than Satan’s butthole. Last week I suggested going to a museum to keep cool, and I stand by that recommendation! If the city’s gonna spend lots of money to keep the art comfortable, then you should absolutely enjoy that a/c too. I’m also proud to report that I finally made it to Staten Island! I played punk rock mini golf at Maker Park in Stapleton and I kind of enjoyed my ride on the Staten Island Ferry; the views of Lady Liberty really can’t be beat.
This week in BCLF we have another ceramic studio visit! I’ve visited a lot of studios at this point and I’m happy to report that this new one was great and will be staying in my rotation. This week also features the return of the Movies section! I’ve been feeling very uninspired with films lately; I haven’t seen anything that’s blown my mind and I’ve just been watching for fun more than for criticism. And that’s ok! Sometimes movies are just fun and you don’t have to think any deeper than that. But I was super happy when Tara got a bunch of us together over the weekend to watch Dogma. It’s one of my favorite Kevin Smith films and I wrote you a nice little bit about it below.
And because I love the View Askiewniverse so much, I created a super special discount that’ll be live for this weekend only 🚨$15 for a yearly subscription 🚨 That’s right, you can show me how much you enjoy reading BCLF for the low low price of one of Jay and Silent Bob’s baggies of weed. I really just wanted an excuse to use this gif and didn’t care if it meant basically giving away shit for free since I pretty much give this shit away for free anyways 🙃
Also so sorry but might need to take next week off due to a week-long company onsite I’ve gotta manage. I know, I also hate it when work gets in the way of fun 😝
Wilcoxson Brooklyn Ceramics 67 West St, Brooklyn, NY 11222 Neighborhood: Greenpoint Hours: Closed Mondays, 10-7 Tue-Sun Price: Single session workshops (incl the mug one) start at $85, weeks-long classes go up from there
You all know I’m a ceramic slut. I’ve tried a bunch of venues including Happy Medium, Bushwick Ceramics, Dirtbag Arthaus, and NYC Drawing Room. So when I got a Wowza Hangout request to make mugs at Wilcoxson in Greenpoint, I was stoked. I haven’t actually made any mugs for myself and I’d love to have a bespoke vessel to drink my little matcha out of at work so I can make all the homies jealous. I signed up immediately.
The studio is located a block from the waterfront and is in one of my favorite little pockets of Greenpoint. After grabbing drinks at Kettl, my Wowza group hung out at Transmitter Park for a bit and then made our way to the pottery studio. The instructors that greeted us and ran the workshop literally could not have been nicer. They were incredibly welcoming, gave really helpful instructions, and were so encouraging of all of our whims and ideas. While they were setting up, they encouraged us to look at some of the work that other workshops folks made to get inspired and they even picked out some of their favorite pieces and told us some techniques we could use. Honestly, staff gets a 100/10 right off the bat.
Now I knew we were going to be slab building vs making stuff on the wheel, but we ended up doing it in a way that was totally new to me! I’m used to making clay slabs the same way a baker would roll out croissant dough: make a ball of clay, slightly flatten, and roll it through a press a few times. So when I saw our table set up with cups of liquid and little wooden wells, I was very confused. Turns out we would be slip casting our mugs, which basically means creating shapes in molds with wet clay. Since we were making a simple mug, we used long rectangular molds to create a strip that we would then roll up into a mug. Very cool and very unexpected!
We were given a few different colors of clay to use throughout the process to create our pieces. Instead of forming the piece out of clay first and then decorating it with underglaze, we were told to paint our designs right on the mold with the colored clay and then pour our main/background color over it. So we were essentially creating the designs in reverse, which definitely required a bit more critical thinking than I was used to. We were working directly with the clay that would be the end product the whole time, as these pieces would only be fired once to set and then once more with a clear glaze to finish. I’m used to having to paint multiple layers of underglaze to make sure it comes out vibrant, but our instructors told us that all of these colors would end up very bright which was cool.
After decorating and pouring what would be our main body slab, we had to wait for the clay to mostly dry before we lifted the strip out of the mold. Once the strip was out, we wrapped it into a cylinder and trimmed off any rough edges. In order to close the bottom of our mugs, we placed our cylinder right back on the mold and poured a layer of slip to fill the bottom. At this point, folks had the option to squish their mug into a fun shape or add a pre-made handle. I resisted the urge to squish and opted to add handles to my lil guys.
I know my mugs don’t look super colorful now, but I’m trusting the process! I made a swirly blue/white mug with white clouds and I made a white mug with pink cherry blossoms. And of course each mug has a tiny smile painted at the bottom. We were told our mugs would be ready for pickup in two weeks, so I’ll update you on how mine turned out next week.
From start to finish, this class was really well designed and would honestly make for a great intro to ceramics. The steps were super easy to follow and the instructors were truly so helpful and encouraging. If you asked them how to do literally any design, they would try to figure out a way to make it work for you (or they would tell you it’s impossible and I appreciate that honesty). Our class was about 2 hours long, which gave us plenty of time to complete our mugs and not feel rushed. And if you wanna hang out after class like we did, there are tons of great places to eat in the area. We went to Karczma and I got pierogies and cold borscht - perfect meal for a hot day!
Dogma (1999) Dir: Kevin Smith
1999 was an absolutely stellar year for movies: Deep Blue Sea, Mystery Men, The Mummy, Big Daddy, Wild Wild West, She’s All That, The fucking Matrix; most of my favorite movies are from this year. But something you must know about me is that I love Kevin Smith’s movies. Yes, even the recent schlocky self-referential mess that was Jay and Silent Bob Reboot; I saw a screening of that followed by a talk with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, which is to say it was mostly a talk with Kevin Smith. What can I say, the man weaves dick jokes alongside existential musings like no other and Dogma might be one of the best examples of Smith’s strengths as a filmmaker, but certainly as a writer (though I consider Mallrats a close second). I also love a Matt Damon and Ben Affleck buddy teamup like no other, so this film is just a fucking delight to watch.
Smith started writing Dogma while he was making Clerks and luckily he had the wherewithal to realize that he was in no position to make Dogma at that point in his life. Sure Clerks is a great film, but it’s really just a bunch of people talking to each other in a bodega. Dogma was a much more complex story with visual effects and would end up having a pretty stacked cast to bring it to life. Smith even warned Mewes that he needed to be on his A-Game because Alan fucking Rickman would be working with them. I think
said it best when she said Rickman in Dogma was the equivalent of Michael Caine in Muppet Christmas Carol - both men took a chance acting outside of their usual prestige and they absolutely ate those roles up.
The film itself was personal to Smith; he was raised Catholic but began questioning those beliefs in his 20s. He would go back and forth in his faith over the years and even spoke to a priest who used the same glass-filling metaphor that’s featured in the movie: the glass grows in size as a person grows older, and so the same knowledge that satisfied one as a child can be insufficient as an adult. But Dogma isn’t your classic “questioning religion” movie and the story comes together in the most Kevin Smith way possible; there are poop monsters, naked men falling from the sky, Indiana Jones quotes (no ticket), three kids with hockey sticks to represent servants of the river Styx (get it?), and Alanis Morissette as what I consider to be the canonical God.
The film follows Bethany, a woman working at an abortion clinic who is having a crisis of faith after she finds out she can’t have kids and her husband leaves her as a result. At the same time, two former angels named Loki and Bartleby (Affleck and Damon at their buddiest) are trying to get back into Heaven by exploiting a loophole in Catholic Dogma. Rickman’s Metatron taps Bethany to team up with two prophets (Jay and Silent Bob) to stop the angels from completing their quest, as that would prove God fallible and unmake humanity. Also, Chris Rock is the 13th apostle and Salma Hayek plays a muse-turned-stripper named Serendipity. It’s an absolute bonkers take on Catholic mythology but it’s done in a way that is surprisingly intelligent and reverent of its source material. Hell, even Roger Ebert thought as much and gave the film 3.5 stars!
In the same way that God speaks through Metatron, Smith speaks through Bethany and the other characters in airing his grievances about the Catholic church. He questions the same tenets that most folks probably question as they try to make sense of how the stories in the good book can exist alongside our earthly world. The film doesn’t try to actually answer any of the questions brought up, as if the answers even existed. Instead, Dogma acts as a conduit for little stoners of all creeds to feel validated in questioning the things they were taught in Sunday School. I’m not religious at all, but one aspect of Judaism that I enjoy is that questioning is encouraged and ooooh boy did I question every damn thing growing up. As far as I can tell, most practicing Jews are constantly exploiting the same kind of loopholes that Dogma’s two fallen angels have identified as their means back into Heaven. I mean, have you ever had a Hasidic dude ask you to turn their lights on/off for them during Shabbat? Feels like a loophole to me.
Dogma was in the news recently because for the last 25 years it’s been held hostage by the likes of Harvey fucking Weinstein. Because the Catholic League was upset by the film’s premise, Smith was having trouble finding a distributor (he famously joined one of their protests undercover). Smith had worked with Weinstein previously (before the whole Me-Too movement), so Weinstein offered to buy the film himself and release it in a sort of roundabout way. So technically, the film was owned by Weinstein personally and Smith had no rights whatsoever. Until now! Just this month Smith was able to regain the rights to his beloved film and has been touring the country with screenings. I wasn’t able to get a ticket, so I did the next best thing and watched the DVD with some homies (and Tara’s cats).
Dogma is up there as one of Smith’s best films (again, Mallrats as a close second and Tusk is great if I wanna feel uncomfortable) and I think it’s really a masterclass in critiquing something you love. As for Smith, he doesn’t identify at Catholic anymore, but I’d argue he found a faith that’s even stronger:
A long long time ago I wrote about why NYC is referred to as Gotham. And wouldn’t you know it, the city’s namesake is coming to Riverside Park for Goatham 2025. Five lucky goats will participate in a competitive eating event, “The Great Goat Graze-Off,” on Saturday, July 12 (rain date July 19). What does this even mean??? I have no idea but you can RSVP to attend for free here.
The NYC Poetry Festival kicks off July 12-13 on Governor’s Island. This year’s theme is Poetopia: Reimagining Poetic Futures, and it invites festival-goers to co-create a world where poetry is a communal resource, hierarchy dissolves, and language is truly free. Oh, and the festival itself is free to attend, too!
Happy Medium is offering a special drawing night at the Woolworth Building on July 30. Learn about this landmarked building and get exclusive access to the 26th floor for an evening of drawing and painting under the skyline. A very reasonable $35 ticket includes admission and all supplies and this will certainly sell out so buy now if you’re interested!
If you’re not into drinking, or if you’re just doing “Dry July”, check out this n/a Bubbles & Botanicals wine tasting on July 15. The event is free to attend and you’ll receive tastings of three Norïe flavors - Lots of Purple, Red Rose Whisper and Heart of Gold. Food and full size pours are available for purchase.
My friend Andy launched a fragrance brand called Glass Candies and everything smells delicious! Andy and I met while volunteering at the Dessert Goals Festival (rip) and share a love for all things sweet. His first round of scents are all gourmand cream soda flavors and my favorites are the Jasmine, Strawberry Matcha, and Melon. You’ll be smelling these on me all summer.
Fellow Substacker Zoe shared a really cool article with me: Keepers of the Secrets. It’s about an archivist at the NYPL and just about the process of archiving in general and how archives differ from libraries. It’s a fascinating read and this quote really stuck out to me:
As a rule, he said, archivists at the library should give you the box you’ve asked for — but also suggest another box. There are fewer opportunities, now, to stumble into a world you don’t already know. “It’s important to look outside of your own existence.” Go off king 👏
Staten Island Girl Summer! Where do I sign up?
Your movie reviews are my favorite thing. I always want to watch what you discuss - and I just miss watching movies with you!