Flight Numbers From 9/11 Are Officially Retired

I was watching a piece on the CBS Evening News last night about Flight 93.  Due to that plane being the only one on 9/11 where data and sound recorders were recovered, there is a lot of information about that fateful flight and the passengers who fought back, possibly saving the US Capitol from a direct hit.

Curious about whether the airlines still use these flight numbers, I found out that the numbers of all four planes involved in the terrorist attacks had been officially retired by American and United Airlines in 2001.  However, in May of this year there was a system error at United in which the numbers 93 and 175 showed up in the system and were quickly removed.

Here's the CBS report from last night in it's entirety with Scott Pelly introducing it from the new Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, PA, opening this weekend.

THE GREAT GATSBY 5: This Time It's In 3D!

That's right--brace yourself for the 5th filmed adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel, this time in glorious 3D!  Australian impressario Baz Luhrman starts filming  at Fox Studios in Sydney this week with a glittery cast headed by Leonardo DiCaprio as the title character and Tobey Maguire as the cutest Nick Carraway the screen has ever seen.  Carey Mulligan is playing Daisy Buchanan, which seems like it could be spot on.

I can only imagine the spectacular spectacle Baz has in mind with a reported budget of $125M.  When I first saw this story (and the pricetag!) on the Hollywood Reporter website, I thought that he was making a musical version.  But his innovation this time out is 3D, which doesn't seem like a such great idea for this particular story.  I can already see the camera zooming-in through the spectacles of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg. But other than that? 

Then again, I was impressed by his take on Shakespeare's overdone R&J (with more than 30 versions on IMDB). So maybe he can surprise us with this remake too.  Baz's glittery GATSBY will hit theatres in November 2012 in hopes of catching Oscar's attention.  

Could A Silent Movie Win An Oscar In 2012

There is big Oscar buzz for a silent movie that is making the festival rounds.  It's called THE ARTIST and is actually set in Hollywood during the silent era, telling the story of two actors who are awfully similar to Greta Garbo and John Garfield.  With the advent of sound, Garfield's career tanked due to his high voice and Garbo's career soared.

The film premiered at Cannes in May, was snatched up by the Weinstein's and recently play to strong audience response at Telluride.  There's a big write-up on the Hollywood Reporter about the film today and whether it just might be the first silent movie to get an Oscar nomination since 1929.  However, to be technical, there are apparently three instances in the film where sound is used to dramatic affect.  The article talked about these but also gave a Spoiler Alert so I didn't read it all the way til the end.

But the film certainly looks promising in its stunningly beautiful trailer, which you can watch below.  The big question is will audiences go to see a silent film?  The Weinstein's have their work cut out for them but they've surprised us before.

Top 6 Worst Excuses By Gay Politicians

So it's been a pretty big summer for political sex scandals.  It started with DSK and the hotel maid back in May, then Anthony Weiner's weiner blowing up all over Twitter in June.  And now in August, when these sort of things tend to flourish, we have two very juicy gay sex scandals entangling two very conservative Republicans.  Quel surprise!

One is a Congressman from Indiana who hired a teenage male hooker from Craigslist, but then tried to say that this was some sort of political takedown he was trying to expose (?!). The other is a senator in Puerto Rico who was on Grindr with some very explicit photos which he claimed had been taken to document his recent weight loss. Oh Mary please!

I have an article out today about some of these summer '11 sex scandals as part of NEXT magazine's end-of-summer yearbook issue.  (It should post to their site this weekend.)  And over at New York magazine, the scandals have inspired them to compile a brilliant list of the top 6 worst excuses by gay politicians.  To mangle Shakespeare--these ladies doth protest waaaay too much.

Hoisting Steel At The Top Of The World

This photo was taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Damon Winter. The NY Times commissioned him in July to take pictures of the men working nearly 1,000 feet in the sky as they together the steel of One World Trade Center.  Winter's black and white photos are reminiscent of Lewis Hines work back in the 1930's when he documented the ironworkers piecing together the Empire State Building.

You can see a lot more of these photos online.  There is an extraordinary multimedia slidshow on the Times website that posted today and there will be print versions of the photos in this Sunday's magazine.  These images are beautiful and breathtaking; a lasting tribute to their work on what will soon be the tallest building in America.

The Encyclopedia of 9/11

We're about a week and a half out from the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the media coverage has begun.  Tonight, NatGeo is airing a doc on President Bush's recollections of the day.  Also this week, New York magazine came out with a cover story called "The Encyclopedia of 9/11".

It's an A-Z list of 100 plus words and phrases connected to the coordinated Al Queda attacks on NY and DC and what they wrought.  Though hardly as comprehensive as it sounds, the list is impressive and does bring back some memories of things forgotten (Green, Mark..mayoral candidate) and updates on where things stand today (Memorial, 9/11...opening next week).

However, I would like to point out that in the W's they missed my play "WTC View".  But they missed Neil LaBute's plays too (he's written 3 with 9/11 themes) so at least I'm in good company.

Film Of Abandoned Amusement Park 6 Years After Katrina

As New Yorkers "recover" from Hurricane Irene, New Orleans this week will remember Katrina, the storm that truly devastated that city six years ago this week.  I recently came across a cool and creepy film of one of the ruins of Katrina which has been relatively untouched since 2005.  Six Flags had a relatively new amusement park in the city, located in the now-infamous Ninth Ward off a highway exit.  The park was swamped by the storm and basically abandoned.

Filmmaker Teddy Smith got into the park last year and shot some beautiful footage on a Canon 5D.  This film screened at the Dallas film festival earlier this year.  Meanwhile in NOLA, the park's future is still in doubt though there was a recent announcement of a plan to redevelop it and the city to take bids on it.  But for now, it is an eerie reminder of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Ghost Town NYC: Hurricane Irene In Pictures

So it was a quiet weekend here in New York.  I mean that quite literally.  The city was deserted from Friday evening through Monday morning due to the concern about Hurricane Irene and the first-ever voluntary shutdown of the NYC subway.  In the end, the hurricane was a bit of a wash (pun intended) but it was fascinating to be in Manhattan minus all the people.  It was a post-apocalyptic weekend, minus the apocalypse thank god!

The picture above is Seventh Avenue, taken from the heart of Greenwich Village and looking uptown.  Amazing.  Not a car or pedestrian in sight.  Below are some more pics; the intersection of 6th avenue and houston, the IFC movie theatre (which closed for the weekend), and a couple of creative tape designs in Village storefronts.  It's like life in a ghost town; all we need are some tumbleweeds rolling down the streets.

This is eerie--6th ave and Houston, a major downtown intersection

No movies at the IFC Center in the Village

Rizza Hair Salon--artsy!

The Jonathan Adler store--patterned tape, of course

A History of Earthquakes in NYC

As anyone with a Twitter account or Facebook found out today within seconds of it happening, there was a major earthquake along the eastern seaboard of the United States today at 1:51pm.  Centered outside a small town near Richmond called Mineral, VA, it was a 5.9 on the Richter scale.  And it was felt pretty strongly here in NYC, which does get earthquakes from time to time.  The last "big one" hit October 27, 2001 and was a 2.6.  That one was quicker than today's quake, which lasted over 30 seconds.

Back in March, the NY Daily News ran an informative piece about the history of earthquakes here in New York.  The city has had it's share of "big one"s, a 5.2 in 1884 and 1737 that originated closer to home. As for something of a magnitude of 7 or more, that is incredibly rare, happening only once ever 3,400 years.  But yesterdays event was big news anyway, seemingly amplified by all the social media tremors that were sent out in its wake.

Boylesque Boys Bare All At the Coney Island Freakshow

Last night I headed all the way out to the ends of Brooklyn and the beaches of Coney Island USA. I went with some friends to see the 5th Annual Boylesque Show (which I've written about before) aka Man-A-Tease at the Sideshow by the Seashore, home to the infamous Coney Island Freakshow.  This years program, curated by Tigger, was quite stunning with the addition of an actual freak to the lineup....Seal Boy!  You can read all about my adventures on the NEXT magazine blog today.  As a bonus, here's some extra pictures below that didn't make the cut.....