October is for scary movies
but also for rom coms because balance 🎃❤️🔥
Oh hey, it’s Thursday. I had all intentions of getting this out yesterday on Wednesday but work and life have been busy so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m heading into a super busy October and I think I’m preemptively stressing out about it. Nearly all of my weekends are already spoken for and I’m trying to carve out whatever time I can in between to do the things I actually want to do vs the things that I am obligated to do.
My therapist told me that of course I don’t have to do anything, but some things feel important enough to do anyways. I think of my IRL relationships in Sims terms sometimes and if I haven’t seen someone in a while or if I say no to something that’s important to them I can see our little friendship meter going down and I can’t rosebud real life. Does anyone else subscribe to The Sims theory of living or is it just me?
1. Noshing 😋
On Sunday Danielle & I had ourselves a day. We originally planned to go to the Prospect Park Zoo, but it’s still recovering from last week’s torrential rain. We pivoted to a Botanic Garden/Zoo/Library day instead and after walking around for 4 hours we needed food ASAP. Crown/Prospect Heights are areas I need to explore much more, but I was very happy with our decision to eat at Rangoon. NYC doesn’t have many Burmese restaurants and this one is pretty good!
We got the tea leaf salad and fried chicken bao to share and both were delicious. Tea leaf salad is a must at a Burmese restaurant. It’s less a salad and more a slaw of cabbage, peanuts, lime, tomato, and of course fermented tea leaves. It’s fresh, crunchy, and a little tangy. The fried chicken in the bao wasn’t the breaded popcorn chicken you’re probably imagining. It’s hard to describe, but the chicken had a thin crispy outside and was coated with a sweet and very mildly spicy sauce. The bao were a surprise highlight for me and I would absolutely get them again.
Danielle and I both got the chicken curry and it smelled really strongly of cinnamon, which I loved (manifesting fall weather over here). The chicken and coconut rice were really great, but I wish the potatoes were cooked a bit more and softer. After going ham on tea leaf salad and chicken bao, I was only able to eat half of my curry and was very happy to eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.
I’ve also been to Rangoon’s Chelsea location and tried a bunch more dishes there (I took my coworkers there for dinner and they were very impressed). Other excellent menu items are the onion fritters, beef flatbread, veggie curry, and garlic noodles. Their desserts all veer into dessert soup territory, a rose milk shake and a tapioca + jelly concoction, which is exactly what I always want. We skipped dessert though and went to The Social instead - Falling for Pumpkin + The Hook were a perfect flavor combo.
2. Watching 👀
Marvel Studios’ Visual Effects (VFX) Workers unanimously voted in favor of unionizing with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)! VFX workers have been very vocal about the harsh working environments and long hours that come with creating blockbuster movies (especially Marvel movies). I used to work in post-production and I saw firsthand that it’s the folks at the end of the production line that often get screwed, so I hope the VFX folks get what they deserve!
I’m not a fan of space horror movies (Event Horizon being an exception) so I’ve never really seen any of the Alien movies (with Prometheus being the exception, but I didn’t know it was an Alien movie when I saw it). So, I finally watched Alien and it was…fine. I can definitely appreciate a lot of the production choices that were made, even though I don’t love outer space.
The first Alien dropped us into the Nostromo ship as they’re returning from a mission. I don’t think we learn what the mission is and I really got the feeling that we were operating in medias res, which turns out to be true as they eventually went on to make Alien prequels. I kind of like that the audience didn’t have much information and had to just wake up and exist in this world, just like the crew aboard the Nostromo as they woke up from their stasis sleep. But I like that the filmmaker assumed the audience would be fine and didn’t go into too much exposition that would have slowed the story down. The first Alien movie felt very claustrophobic because we spend nearly all of it confined in the ship, not knowing what’s around the next corner (spoiler: it’s aliens) and that really created a feeling of urgency and anxiety that set the tone for the movie.
One thing that absolutely baffles me, though, is how no one on that crew knew Ash was an android. That motherfucker was acting shady right from the start. And then Kane finds alien eggs and fucking pokes them?? Ripley was the only sane person on that ship, which honestly makes her return in Aliens so confusing. Sure she was offered her old job back if she went on this new rescue mission, but she never struck me as particularly career motivated, just practical and willing to get shit done.
The second movie, Aliens, was directed by James Cameron right after he finished the first Terminator movie and the similarities are endless, right down to casting the actor who played Kyle Reese opposite Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley & having an almost identical scene in which he teachers her how to use a big gun. This movie is absolutely filled with machinery and even the aliens, which we see much more of now, have an almost biomechanical design to them. I would even argue that The Matrix took a ton of design cues from the aliens in this movie when they made the tentacley machines that occupy the real world.
Aliens’ runtime is a pretty bloated 2.5 hours and I think a lot could have been cut out. There are too many scenes whose main purpose seems to be to depict the group of marines on the mission with Ridley as idiots - I got it after the first couple times. It also suffers a bit from the classic chase movie pitfall that is “hide in this room, monster finds us, hide in another room, repeat.” Despite these criticisms, the movie did keep me largely engaged for the whole time (minus multiple bathroom + snack breaks).
The plan is to finish watching all of the Alien movies this month because October is obviously horror movie month, but it’s also rom com month because in this house we like balance. Please send me and horror or rom com recs to add to my list!
3. Exploring 🛼
Since I couldn’t go to the Prospect Park Zoo over the weekend, I made a detour over to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch to visit the Book of Hov exhibit. The free exhibit was created by Roc Nation and featured all sorts of Jay-Z memorabilia - records, clothing, photos. It was a nice way to kill an hour and I was also really happy to see lots of folks in the library doing library things - use your libraries! This library building also happens to be fucking beautiful and the entrance is decorated with gilded literary characters.
The exhibit was divided up into a few sections around the library and they unfortunately weren’t super organized. It wasn’t really clear where sections were and they didn’t always follow each other sequentially. But the good news is that it really doesn’t even matter if you go in order or not so just wander around and you’ll be fine. Some sections were definitely cooler than others - I really liked the room with Jay’s awards + records playing and also the big video room upstairs. I had no idea that Oasis criticized him attending Glastonbury and that he opened his set with Wonderwall! That’s kinda baller.
The rest of the curation was decent, but a lot of the writing that went along with the exhibits was….not great. I really got the feeling that the Roc Nation folks who put the exhibit together were really kissing Jay’s ass and praying that he would keep signing their paychecks by exalting and raving about him. Like the writing is mad corny at times.
This exhibit, presented in chapters akin to a book, celebrates the phenomenal story of a man who turned adversities into stepping stones… JAY-Z is one of one. He’s a diamond forged under pressure. His journey is extraordinary…
If you’re a fan of Jay-Z, you might enjoy this exhibit. A downside for me was that his music was only playing in a couple areas and I wish it was playing throughout, but I understand because “library”. And to be honest, most of it is viewable on the website, so you could probably just read through everything and blast Watch the Throne at home.
4. Learning 🧠
Last week I talked about my love for pinball and how it used to be illegal in NYC. This week I’m talking about another thing that used to be illegal - tattoos! From 1961 to 1997 (36 years) it was illegal to tattoo in NYC.
Tattoos were always a bit of a counter-culture art form, at least in the West. Sailors would get tattoos to mark places they’ve visited, yakuza and other gang members would get tattoos to mark their affiliations, and women who were heavily tattooed often worked in sideshows. Of course a lot of indigenous people had been getting tattooed for years and I’m happy to see more of that being celebrated now! But somehow in 1961, just a few years before the summer of love, NYC decided to ban this form of art and self expression.
Officially, the ban was a reaction to a Hepatitis B scare. There was a small outbreak across the city and the idea of ink going into skin with needles seemed to be an easy culprit to point to. But because many artists continued to operate underground and there was no uptick in Hep B, it would seem that this wasn’t actually the case. The actual reason was much more likely one of public perception and of course, money.
The 1964 World’s Fair was set to take place in NYC in Queens and lots of money and manpower were sunk into beautifying NYC before the prestigious event. Mayor Wagner and notorious poopybutthole Robert Moses saw this fair as their chance to rake in the big bucks for the city and increase tourism. This was the fair they built the Unisphere for! But surely no one would come to NY if there were a bunch of undesirable folks walking around with *gasp* tattoos. So in 1961, tattooing was officially banned in NYC under the pretense of preventing Hep B, but actually because we wanted rich people to come to the World’s Fair.
But like I said, that didn’t stop people from getting tattoos. Lots of tattoo artists moved to NJ or Long island, but a bunch operated out of apartments or at night. And new shops even opened during the ban. Fun City and Fineline are two of NY’s oldest tattoo shops and they opened during the ban in the 80s and 70s. And since it was technically only illegal to give tattoos during the ban and not to have them, folks didn’t have to worry after they got inked. So technically someone could easily have gotten a tattoo on Long Island, and rolled up to the World’s Fair the next day.
Daredevil Tattoo opened in 1997 as the ban was lifted and is now home to a small tattoo museum (I took a tour there that was really good). Today, NYC is home to some of the best tattoo artists in the world and I’ve gotten a lot of work done by Zoe Bean and George Bardadim right in my own backyard (not literally because I live in an apartment, the backyard is Brooklyn). About a third of New Yorkers are tattooed currently and we haven’t had another World’s Fair in NY since 1964, so I’m not sure if the ban had the intended outcome….
5. What’s Good 😎
From Oct 6 - Nov 6 Subway Therapy will have sticky notes set up at City Point! You’ve probably seen them pop up in Union Square subway station before. This time around, they’re asking folks to write the spookiest thing they’ve ever seen on the notes and it’ll be part of the month long exhibition.
Welcome to Chinatown is partnering with a bunch of restaurants to raise funds to build their new hub. From Oct 7-8 a portion of sales from every pancake order at Golden Diner will be donated. I can confirm from experience that the pancakes are absolutely worth the wait. Here’s a tip: put your name on the list at Golden Diner, then walk a few minutes to Super Taste and pre-game with some of their fried pork dumplings. But the time you’re done eating dumplings, your table will be ready and you can eat pancakes!
The best Taiwanese noodle soup shop, Ho Foods, is having a stoop sale on Sunday Oct 8. They’re selling collection of random kitchen and service things and should have more details about what’s available posted on their stories in the coming days. Asian restaurants always have the cutest little cups and dishes and I will definitely be stopping by.
This past week was a whirlwind for fans of the Tompkins Sq Park Dog Costume Parade. The parade has been held for as long as I can remember but was canceled earlier this week, allegedly due to exorbitant permitting fees the organizers couldn’t afford. However, public outcry forced it back on because life is terrible and we deserve to have the tiniest bit of serotonin gleaned from seeing dogs in costumes!
Feltz Bagels, a felt bagel popup, will be open in the East Village through October 31. If there’s anything New Yorkers love more than bagels, it’s weird ass popups. This one, though, features a ton of cute felt bagels and other snacks made by artist Lucy Sparrow. I have my eye on the anthora coffee cup and hope it’s one of the more affordable options there 🤞
If your October isn’t as full as mine and you’re looking for things to do, please make your way over to Uncovermore’s account. Arianna made a whole guide of October events, though I’ll add that in addition to an UES Halloween decoration crawl, you should walk through Carroll Gardens, too. Rich folks have money to spare and they spend it on giant spider decorations.
Sul sul!