Aisle 19

Aisle 19: Seasonal Aisle

My god it's full of mermaids!

Summer has hit Brooklyn, oddly enough summer is not marked by the summer solstice. Oh heavens no. It is marked when a slew of people dress up like mermaids and pirates and parade down Surf Ave in Coney Island (at least this is what Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President, exclaimed as he traveled on a tropical float). This was my first exposure to the Mermaid Parade and exposure is a pretty apt word choice oh the bosoms! Oh the semi-clad men and women!



So part of me wants to give the whole parade a performance studies go over, but then a large part of me just wants to revel in the fact that I spent the better part of an afternoon engulfed by a world of weirdly beautiful individuals. Yes there were stereotypical costumes and there were some costumes I ended up getting mildly ill about but then you have to take most things with a grain of salt and a shot of tequila with a twist of lime and maybe a hula girl (or hula boy depending on your preference) by your side. Most notably there was a Steve Irwin costume complete with sting ray sticking out of his heart, I mean ok firstly the joke (what little of one there was) died about three weeks after Irwin, and secondly it's not all that interesting or original of an idea. But c'est la vie, n'est pas?

There was a great over arching theme to the whole parade and that was, Coney Island is dead (or more aptly dieing, which it semi-is and semi-isn't). You see Coney Island is soon to begin project uber gentrification. Some land developers bought up a large quantity of land and will soon be building condos and tearing down some or all of AstroLand and replacing it with a more "family friendly" (read Disney/Las Vegasesque) theme park and resort area. This will bring more money and thus glory to Coney Island and Brooklyn BUT it will also end up 1) pushing the current residents out of the area (mainly due to the raise in the cost of living) and 2) it will destroy the image of what Coney Island is, well currently. What is Coney Island? Coney Island is a seedy area, however, it also is an area that has a lot of community spirit. It's seedy, it can be dangerous at night, but there's a sort of essence to the place and energy that makes it seem like it could really be a paradise for the underground art scene.

Now when I say underground I don't mean avant garde, ruled by the privileged, intelligentsia, oh no. I mean something along the lines of a DIY aesthetic, much like the Ideat Village in New Haven, only year round. Something community based that supports those that actually live there (so you know something that pays attention to the fact Coney Island and its neighbor Brighton Beach has a rather large Slavic community). What I noticed in past neighborhoods, where the arts decided to stake a creative claim to the space, is that the artists tend to ignore those that live in the area. Oh not initially. Like in Wicker Park in Chicago. When the art-folk first started to populate out there (in the late 1980s early 1990s) they were drawn there by the community (and the prices of housing). It had that certain seedy charm that all artist thirst for (think La Bohem). However, as more artsy folk entered the area their focus went from collaborating with the already present community to establishing themselves as a separate and dominant community. Perhaps this is inevitable for all art districts. Perhaps if Coney became an art haven then it would end up becoming just as gentrified as it soon will be.

Whatever the fate of Coney Island in the near future, some things will remain. Such as the Mermaid Parade. Also the Coney Island Museum (which also operates the Sideshow) will remain, so some bastions of freakishness will persevere.




To see all the photos I took at the Mermaid Parade, click here!

Aisle 34 and 1/4

Aisle 34 & 1/4: The Bargain Movie Aisle

I type this as I watch that great western classic, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and yes this post is fully about this movie and movies of its ilk and yes I am fully aware that I haven't written in ages on this blog. No you will not be getting a detailed account of where I've been or what I have been doing. All you need to know is that I am now back to writing this thing and I'm starting off with this Clint Eastwood film.

I have always had an interest in westerns, even as a kid, though I seldom watched any. Mainly I would watch The Three Amigos and just about any black and white Zorro flick I could get my hands on. I also despised just about every John Wayne movie made (and I still feel that way for the majority of his films). I took a break from watching westerns when I reached seventh grade, I switched over to the more Carlesque B-horror films. I only returned to watching them when I was in undergrad. I quickly realized I liked the more gritty films of Clint Eastwood rather than any of the other films of this genre (though Tombstone and Wyatt Erp were both awesome). Around this time I also started rewatching old samurai films that I saw as a kid (mostly Akira Kurosawa films, like Yojimbo and Throne of Blood). What interested me in both these film genres was that they were pretty much one in the same. Granted most of Kurosawa's films (the ones not based off of Shakespeare) were directly translated into western form but the actual stories told in samurai films would play out as one would easily imagine them playing out in a western. Lone samurai/gunslinger drifter enters a town, kills multiple baddies with great skill and speed and eventually has a show down/duel/epic battle with the main antagonist who is dispatched, pretty much with one simple move after the protagonist gets thrashed about. Also look at the cinematic teachings of the samurai. It is said in many of these films (normally from the mouth of the wise master, who pretty much is going to be killed at one point or another) that the samurai must be able to fight till their last breath, in the westerns you see pretty much the same thing only without the master part. How many westerns have you seen where one of the gunslingers gets shot and in their dying breath manage to fire one last shot (and if they are a good guy they at least scar their assailants or at best they save their compadre who is just about to be killed).

Now let's get back to the movie in question. What's interesting is that this film is set during the Civil War. So there's tons of Confederate troops all over the place and tons of background fighting. Regardless you have three characters each moving through this war like environment, not really siding with anyone. They all follow their own individual missions. Plus I love Lee Van Cleef and the whole man with no name trilogy. It's all about redemption and revenge, and a big old pile of gold.

This is the first time I've watched this film all the way through in one sitting. Quite long but it seems worth it. I wonder why they don't make any films like this anymore... or maybe they do and they're all made in Italy. Honestly though, I could see westerns making a come back, especially now, with the world as it is. No I don't think people should remake the old classics, no I don't think they should place a western motif to another era (that's been done, see Star Wars, the original three, and John Carpenter's Vampires, and every other Robert Rodriguez film), I do think there are a shit load of western pulp novels that have been written that would make a pretty nifty movie treatment.

Now a western, samurai, and film noir combo flick... that'll be something I'd love to see.