and-now-its-dead
Requiem for a Dolphin
Max Read · 01/25/13 06:24PM![](http://d20hvt89h2l7r8.cloudfront.net/18cmnvghpo1fljpg/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg)
A fish shape appeared on Paumanok on Friday morning, carried in on high tide. A dolphin: It had started from the sea and made its way into Brooklyn from without, working along the wood and concrete embankments toward the river head, and by mid-morning it was paused by one of Gowanus's empty lots, surfacing and plunging out of and in to the mucoid black. A gathering crowd of locals and police watched it from the shore; it was hyperventilating and bleeding from its fin. Biologists from the Riverhead Foundation arrived. The next high tide wouldn't be until 7 p.m.
You Listened to Your Witch Doctor and Now the Tiny Rhinos are (Almost) Gone
Robert Kessler · 01/03/13 03:50PMDon Hill's Has Closed For Good
Brian Moylan · 04/27/11 11:38AMCabrini-Green, 1942-2010
Hamilton Nolan · 12/09/10 12:36PMThe Last Days of OTB
Max Read · 12/09/10 01:54AMQuadrangle Group, 2000-2010
Hamilton Nolan · 11/22/10 10:00AMAmerica Loses a National Treasure: Shoot the Freak
Brian Moylan · 11/01/10 03:44PMThe Jay Leno Show: 2009-2010
Adrian Chen · 02/09/10 10:39PMDef Jux, 2000-2010
Hamilton Nolan · 02/03/10 01:08PMThe Day the Indies Died: Miramax Closes Its Doors
Richard Lawson · 01/28/10 01:39PMThe Dream Ends for Fox Reality Network
Richard Rushfield · 10/14/09 06:42PMGourmet Magazine: Slain at 68, RIP
Richard Rushfield · 10/05/09 12:03PMGaydar is Dead
The Cajun Boy · 08/11/09 05:31AMPortfolio, 2007-2009
Hamilton Nolan · 04/27/09 10:11AMJossip.com: 2003-2009
Richard Lawson · 04/19/09 08:00AMThe Death of the Beatrice Inn
Richard Lawson · 04/07/09 12:58PMSparks: 2002-2008
Pareene · 12/18/08 02:18PMGay Troubadour Is Bankrupt Iceland's Only Hope
Richard Lawson · 11/25/08 03:39PM![](http://d20hvt89h2l7r8.cloudfront.net/18m7tpf0kfj06jpg/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg)
If ever there was a grim picture of the current financial clusterfuck, it's the once artsy (Björk! sigur rós!), hip, and rich island nation wonderland of Iceland, which fell into cataclysmic economic failure earlier this month. And it happened pretty much overnight. Since the three major banks collapsed under crippling debt and a plummeting currency, job loss has been widespread—the architecture industry, for example, has seen some 75% of its work force laid off in the past few weeks. Now the seemingly peaceful population has devolved into an angry, violent mob, with a gay "troubadour" named Hordur Torfason leading the charge against the government.
Screaming Goodbye To Total Request Live
Richard Lawson · 11/14/08 04:06PM![](http://d20hvt89h2l7r8.cloudfront.net/18m7wtvruil2bjpg/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg)
Do you feel that tingly spark in the air today, especially as you near Times Square? It's because Total Request Live, MTV's long-running afterschool music video special is coming to an end after ten years, signing off on Sunday with a special big send-off bash. Yes, one of the last remaining programs on the cable net to still air videos (albeit at truncated lengths and often interrupted by shrieking teenagers) will be no more, ceding like everything else to the Date My Moms and Hills of the world. Ironic, because in some ways, actually, the top 10 videos of the day countdown show helped create the new MTV landscape that eventually came to usurp it. The draw of TRL was never really the actual videos. It was the spectacle view of dizzying Times Square, the live-ness, the celebrity appearances, the affable and comfortably hip hosts (Carson Daly! And, um, Jesse Camp! And that girl from One Tree Hill!) It was really about the lifestyle of liking music, the thrill of just being thrilled, the ecstasy and immediacy and bittersweet fever dances of being a kid and out of school and having stumbled upon this great big infinite thing called Personality (I like this song—I am rock! You like that video—you are pop!). That celebration of the culture of music, rather than the music itself, has spilled over into the network's current top hits, like The Hills. That particular reality dollop of non-fat Cool Whip expertly employs the hit songs of tomorrow to evoke, along with the swirling cameras, a soaring and sprawling range of feelings. Like music usually is in real life, music on MTV now serves as the illustrative background to the people dating and getting made and dancing and competing and existing in the fore. And we've TRL to blame/thank for that—for adding a bit of shape to the world as it's seen through the MTV lens. It said "here we are, set at on all sides by movies and television and pretty people and hormones, and here, in brief, is the soundtrack to accompany all of it. And you chose it." And those huge picture windows overlooking the crowds and lights and glitz, through which we could look out and others could look in! A glass case of emotion! !!! Click to view