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Culturally Speaking

By Sarah Stodola

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This is an interesting article about waning importance of religion in Europe. Don't let them fool you early on; it is about Europe, not the developing world.

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Strange little film, indeed. The site in general, though, is very good, and very liable to suck you in for a long stretch of time.

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So I finally saw Lost In Translation. I think I was last one in below 14th Street or in Brooklyn. And I think that inevitably this has had an impact on my opinion of it. I can't decide if I just thought it was a pretty good early effort by a young director with an enviable set of genes, or if I would actually think it was a really really great movie if it hadn't been hyped up so much already. Bill Murray is really great in it, regardless. And Tokyo was made into a fascinating backdrop. And I really liked how at the end, Bob whispers something to Charlotte and no one has any idea what. It made the moment all the more intimate, and also it's an ending in which you know that the characters have come to a resolution, but you don't know what that resolution is, which is a smart way to end this kind of movie. And usually with things like this, I end up not liking them because I have this little rule where I can only like things that happen between a guy and a girl if you could switch the genders around and it would still work. But this movie passes the test, so I am allowed to like it. So now that I've laid all my thoughts down, I'm starting to think I must have actually really thought film was pretty great.

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That great old post office building on 8th Ave in midtown Manhattan is being vacated by the Post Office - and it's the Republicans who are kicking them out (for their stupid convention, at which Governor Schwarzennegger will apparently speak. Agh). It's so sad; I have such fond memories of sitting around with my friend Amanda at 10pm on April 15 at the age of 23, staring at our blank tax forms over a six pack, then hopping in a cab in order to make it to that great big monolith of a building by midnight in order to file for an extension in time. It's a funny memory, but what the hell was wrong with us; Did we not yet realize that you could do these things online?

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You know the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building in Brooklyn? The one that is a lonely, lonely skyscraper in the nameless region between Fort Greene, Park Slope, and Boerum Hill? Apparently, it was meant to be the centerpiece of a Brooklyn business district. The district never materialized, even though the building is many decades old now. However, I wonder if the plan is back underway, what with that great big complex going up right next to the skyscraper and all.

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My friend Lionel said that Chelsea is Manhattan's suburbia because it has all the chain stores, plus an Olive Garden. My friend Will said that the Upper West Side is the living example of what a mall designed by the New Yorker might look like. But I would still rather live in either of those "burb-like" neighborhoods than in the real burbs. At least Chelsea has gay clubs and art galleries, and the Upper West Side has Lincoln Center and Beacon Theater. And also you can walk to everything you need and if you want to leave you have access to public transportation that will actually get you there.

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The Postal Service is much much better than Death Cab for Cutie, even though both bands have the same creative forces behind them.

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Forgotten New York is such a great website for anyone who is overcome with the fascination of the thing every time the topic of New York City history comes up.

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The whole issue of globalization might be the most complex thing I have ever come across. So many interests, so many factions, so many countries, and industries and currencies and markets and regulations.  What a mess.

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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted at [email protected].

© 2003 Me Three