A cross-country Amtrak travelogue. The trip is not without its charms but overall sounds like torture.

A raspy-voiced woman in her 40s, one of the engineers, calls down from the cab and invites a few of us to come take a look. Without hesitation we clamber up. She tells us that they’re off duty, as her partner, a mustachioed, red-faced man with faded tattoos, nods. When engineers hit their driving quota, apparently, they’re done. It’s an unbendable rule. “They knew, though,” the woman says, speaking of Amtrak. “They should have had someone here.” So this could’ve been prevented? “Oh yeah,” the man says, “but leave it to them and they’ll fuck it up.” And so we wait, in the middle of nowhere, for new engineers. After a couple of hours a truck pulls up with the new drivers.

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hat tip bwe; suchmann’s got the original video.

The Brooklyn Paper published an article today interviewing the filmmakers behind “Cult of Sincerity”, a straight-to-youtube feature documenting the lives of a bunch of 20somethings living it out in Williamsburg. In what not only marks the end of the straight-to-DVD route, “Cult of Sincerity” is also trying a different strategy to make back some bills.

The film is totally free, you can view it on youtube, or, catch it on Channel 13 on August 23rd. Don’t have cable or internet? Well, It’s screening at Stain Bar that night as well, where “important scenes in the film were shot”. All the filmmakers ask of you is that you go to aimestreet.com/cultofsincerity and sign up…they get 2 bucks a pop for that and you get free music.

Here’s the trailer, and if looks like it’ll keep your boat afloat go watch the full feature on YouTube.

Read the full article at the Brooklyn Paper, and go watch the film on youtube.

Santiago, July 9. Combative youth show their respect to flag and all national emblems, rioting against them and the war machine that uses them. Read more (Castellano).

List of the 25 most modern libraries in the world. (through kottle.org)

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From NY Observer

It’s more or less an open secret, but we’ve learned that the Top Chef cast has definitely been living for about two weeks now in a terraced duplex penthouse in Williamsburg overlooking McCarren Park. So far, the chefs have pretty much kept to themselves, said an extremely well-placed source, leaving around 8 or 9 in the mornings for a soundstage in Greenpoint and coming straight back in the evenings…. 

Though the source would not say which of the two “identical” parkview penthouses the cast is living in, a 1,368-square-foot, 16th-floor unit was sold in April for $1.4 million, according to StreetEasy. (Meanwhile the neighboring unit, 16A, is in contract for $1.295 million.)

According to the duplex floor plans on the 20 Bayard Web site, the first floor has an open-air kitchen, foyer, eating area and living room–with a balcony–and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking McCarren Park and Manhattan. …

So far the cast has remained pretty incognito. Few people from neighboring buildings were even aware Top Chef was shooting in Williamsburg.

“No way,” said the cashier at Urban Rustic, an organic market down the street, who is a fan of the show. “That’s awesome.”

So will the cast do any shopping there?

“That would be cool, but I doubt it,” the cashier said. “They usually give them a budget.”

I’m glad to see Obama gave a speech for the Muslim community. Not all Muslims are terrorists. In case you missed it, here was Barry Blitt’s response yesterday.

Santiago, July 9. Human Rights Assembly + the Freedom Speech Platform took the San Francisco’s Church as a way of protest against the constant repression and violence from police against students, teachers and mapuche people. The action ended with the compromise of church of take part of the issue.

On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Photographer Robert Wiles took a photo of McHale a few minutes after her death.

The photo ran a couple of weeks later in Life magazine accompanied by the following caption:

On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. ‘He is much better off without me … I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody,’ … Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale’s death Wiles got this picture of death’s violence and its composure.

From McHale’s NY Times obituary, Empire State Ends Life of Girl, 20:

At 10:40 A. M., Patrolman John Morrissey of Traffic C, directing traffic at Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, noticed a swirling white scarf floating down from the upper floors of the Empire State. A moment later he heard a crash that sounded like an explosion. He saw a crowd converge in Thirty-third Street.

Two hundred feet west of Fifth Avenue, Miss McHale’s body landed atop the car. The impact stove in the metal roof and shattered the car’s windows. The driver was in a near-by drug store, thereby escaping death or serious injury.

On the observation deck, Detective Frank Murray of the West Thirtieth Street station, found Miss McHale’s gray cloth coat, her pocketbook with several dollars and the note, and a make-up kit filled with family pictures.

The serenity of McHale’s body amidst the crumpled wreckage it caused is astounding. Years later, Andy Warhol appropriated Wiles’ photography for a print called Suicide (Fallen Body), but I can’t find a copy of it anywhere online. Anyone?

Update: A not-so-great representation of Warhol’s version of this photograph is available at Google Books.

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A street artist put up a piece as a birthday present for his girlfriend, who had moved to Connecticut. Friends and strangers alike were encouraged to pose with the painted lady; the photo project can be found here.

By late June, however, the piece was painted grey and then quickly revived with a Sharpie. Now, not even a month after, it seems that the statue the end, as it was found busted in half over the weekend. It’s a cruel, I wonder if it was personal… maybe not.