In case you missed it here is Marc Fisher’s story in The New Yorker about a charismatic teacher and alleged abuse:

“People don’t understand,” Gene told me. “People think of child abuse as a moment in a shower, like Sandusky. They don’t think of it as essentially abducting and brainwashing. This was a cult of art, literature, and music, a cult that was revered in some circles. And being in a cult is seen as a sign of weakness.” Once a week, Gene goes to a meeting of adult survivors of childhood abuse. Others attend for a few months and move on. Five years later, Gene is still going.

Gene wants Berman to be held accountable. Yet he knows that some mystery will always remain. At one of their first conferences, in tenth grade, Berman gave Gene a small bronze Porcellino, Pietro Tacca’s Baroque sculpture of a piglet, which has become a common souvenir of Florence. Despite everything, Gene holds on to that pig. “This meant that somebody loved me, and nobody had ever shown me that before,” Gene says. “It’s a conundrum. Why don’t I just drop it in the garbage right now? It’s part of me, part of my life. I guess I’ll be done with it when I don’t need somebody’s love.”

[Illustration by Owen Freeman]

Coolin’ with Cal.

[Photo Via: Airows]

Mustard, ketchup, relish, onions, kraut, chili…how do you like your dog? I’ve tried the Chicago-style dogs and think they’re great.

Usually, though, I’ll just go with mustard, though I can also do relish or, if I’m feeling particularly brave, onions. Ketchup, never. But The Wife always puts ketchup (and mustard) on hers, so go figure.

Picture by Benjamin DeRosa.

And the remix.

[Featured Image Via: It’s a Long Season]

Nasty.

Byrd in Hand.

[Image Via: mOrtality]

Picture by Akihiko Miyoshi.

Picking up on yesterday’s Gram Parsons post, here is an interview with Emmy Lou Harris in the New York Times:

You blossomed as a songwriter relatively late.

Well, there were so many songs that were already written that I wanted to sing. Really, I don’t know why I avoided it. Sometimes I have to be backed into a corner. After “Wrecking Ball” I wanted to continue on that path, that sort of sound, but I felt that I had to bring something else to the table besides my voice. At about the same time Rodney and I were visiting Guy [Clark] and Susannah, and Guy looked me right in the eye and he said: “You need to write your next record. I don’t care if it takes you five years.” And I think it did.

Gram Parsons was your first mentor and you lost him at a tender age. Does he continue to influence you?

I started out being a fanatical lover of folk music. Country music, even though I was exposed to it, I just thought that I couldn’t be bothered with it. I could not hear the subtlety in it, I couldn’t hear the poetry in it. I was a Joan Baez wannabe. But Gram, he heard something in my voice. He thought I could sing country music. I started as a harmony singer, that was his way to kind of sneakily turn me onto this extraordinary body of music, and in singing country music I really found the place that my voice was supposed to be. It also made me appreciate the joys of working with a band, which meant a drummer, which was anathema to folk singers. I can’t imagine that I would have gotten to the place I am artistically or even vocally, if it hadn’t been for Gram.

Get healthy, bitches.

Painting by Ha Huynh My.

Yum fun via Ghost in the Machine.

The freaks come out at night.

[Picture by Ed Vebell via This Isn’t Happiness]

Via Black Book, here’s on Eileen Myles on Gram Parsons.

Via Kottke, here’s something juicy: a 1978 “Raiders of the Lost Ark” story conference transcript with George Lucas, Steven Speilberg and Lawrence Kasdan.

Over at Philadelphia Magazine, DJ Jazzy Jeff remembers He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper:

Before we started on that album, we were in the process of doing a DJ album, and we already had those songs done, so when we started recording songs for He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, I was like, “Yo, why don’t we put both of these albums together and just do a double album?” It was kinda funny because no one had ever thought to do that. We just made the suggestion, and Jive was like, “Yo, that might be great. It would be the first rap double album.”

So, we already had half of that done, and we just started piecing together the songs and figuring out which ones we were gonna have on the record. One of the shows that we did was at Union Square in New York, and it just so happens that [New York radio DJ] Mr. Magic taped it. I just did a DJ routine and didn’t even think anyone was taping it. We did that at every show. He started playing the show on the radio, and people were calling in and requesting that part. It got so big that it really helped me as a DJ, especially in New York. So, we called Mr. Magic and asked if we could have a copy of the tape because I had suggested we put that on the album, too. So “Live at Union Square” was actually a cassette recording of us performing at Union Square.

Boom.

Bap.

More, on my pal Shannon:

“Towheads,” which makes its premiere Wednesday at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the annual New Directors/New Films survey (with a second screening Saturday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center), features a unique homegrown ensemble filled out by filmmaker Derek Cianfrance (“Blue Valentine,” “The Place Beyond the Pines”) paralleling his real-life role as Ms. Plumb’s husband and the boys’ father. The story centers on Penelope (Ms. Plumb), a lapsed actor who has back-burnered her career in favor of homebound motherhood while her theater-director husband focuses on his work. Penelope increasingly falls prey to a kind of mac-and-cheese Stockholm Syndrome from the isolating and unrelenting demands of round-the-clock parenting.

Though new to feature filmmaking, Ms. Plumb has made dozens of Super 8 films with homemade props, minimalist camera blocking and deadpan physical comedy closer to silent-era film comedians and Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot than to the video artists with whom she has shared gallery space.

“Her presence onscreen is arresting,” said Alex Orlovsky, a “Towheads” co-producer who has worked on Mr. Cianfrance’s films as well. “I was aware of that from her video art. She is really gifted in that Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin sort of way. It’s totally anachronistic. No one does that.”

An oral history of New York Food.

Oh, baby.

From Spoon Fork Bacon comes this goodness: free form potatoes au gratin.