Caine Blog

I’m growing tired - have been tired for some time, I suppose - of writers using their New York residency as a rhetorical device.  Maybe this was once acceptable, when being from the Upper West Side or the East Village had a concrete connotation, but increasingly the device feels like an amateurish way of bragging [...]

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Went to a party on Friday night.  An n+1 party.  Yeah.
n+1 parties, it turns out, are precisely what you’d expect.  The veneer of enlightenment - of serious, critical theory - is mostly manifested through name-dropping and job-dropping and school-dropping (speaking of which, I ran into a couple Carleton people, which was what it was), and [...]

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It’s always nice to see Carleton folks take the things they did at school and, upon graduation, kick them up a notch.  Gospel Gossip is still killing Minneapolis, and now some assorted music-minded former Carls have started a band, Dinosaur Feathers, that aims to rock the face off of Brooklyn and beyond. They’re not bad [...]

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What a shame - this concert had so much potential, unfortunately unrealized, and it ended up a disappointment.  As for the bands: I only saw Amazing Baby and Violens, so I can’t comment on Chairlift -  easily the most hyped band of the night - but the two bands I did see are also leading [...]

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So much has happened the past couple of weeks.  I went to a bunch of concerts, for one…In fact, I’ll write about them over the next couple of days.
1. Teengirl Fantasy, City Center, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone @ Silent Barn, 10-25-08
2. Pre, Mei Shi @ Market Hotel, 10-25-08
3. Suckers @ Glasslands, 10-24-08
4. Dinosaur Feathers [...]

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Last night I fell down a hipster rabbit hole.  I’d paid five dollars for this concert, but upon entering the venue I was told the show was free and that I could have my money back.  Awesome!  It only grew stranger.  Why was a midget Kiss cover band opening for two Brooklyn bands du jour?  [...]

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Went to JFK yesterday for the unveiling of the new JetBlue terminal.  To wit:

Quite the ceremony yesterday at JFK Airport, with JetBlue rolling out their renovated terminal to employees, press, special guests, and all manner of dignitaries. Bloomberg was on hand, as were Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, a number of congressmen and senators, Port [...]

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That’s the question I have every time I walk down Metropolitan Avenue, in Williamsburg. Why? Because the land under the BQE is like an untapped oil field, or if that’s a little too much for you, like a wind turbine that’s yet to be raised: pure potential.
Dead zones around expressways aren’t unprecedented in New York: [...]

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Bouley, the Tribeca pillbox/fancy restaurant, has a killer lunch menu - 6 courses for $48 and of course endless amuses bouches.  The best part, though, is the carpet.  Unlike in France, where cushy flooring seems mandatory for a three star grab, you don’t see too much carpet on restaurant floors around here.   This makes total [...]

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There was a period - maybe in high school, or freshman year of college? - when I listened to a lot of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.  Perhaps you know the act.  “They” are really one guy, Owen Ashworth, who sings depressing songs about youthful indulgence, deflated post-collegiate dreams, and lost love, set to the [...]

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