Last weekend, my NYC-based photographer friend Nikola Tamindzic was part of an art show supporting NYC artists and featuring work they’d created during the pandemic. One of the prints he was selling was a photo he took of me, remotely, during the early days of the pandemic. What a delight to be included.
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6 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "#philipjohnson"
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Russell Sage Foundation’s Social Science Summer Institute for Journalists. Helmed by Nicholas Lemann and Tali Woodward, it’s an intimate seminar that teaches journalists how to write about the social sciences and think like social scientists. Guests speakers included Andrea Elliott and Shamus Khan. It’s held in a Philip Johnson building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I’m already using the tools I acquired there. I highly recommend it for everyone: from graduate students to veteran reporters.
[Image via my Instagram]
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I went to NYC last week and had a great time. One day, I walked through Central Park. It was raining lightly, and the leaves were turning, and it was all very grand and expansive and delightful. I miss it already.
Support the arts! Buy a digital copy of THE TUMOR, a "masterpiece of short fiction" by me, Susannah Breslin.
Image via Blouin News
Previously, I wrote about "litvertising." In other words, using fiction to sell things.
Speaking of which, I wrote a few pieces for NYC, 1981, a site created to discreetly promote "A Most Violent Year," which was written and directed by J. C. Chandor and for which Jessica Chastain was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. The movie takes place in 1981, that most violent year, and the content of the site is all about that year or that time.
I did one piece that was non-fiction, "The Rise and Fall of the King of Swing," and one piece that was fiction, "Sex and the City, 1981." I did some research before writing the latter piece and came up with the idea of portraying a man wandering the streets of the city at night and ending up at a peep show. I ended up watching this video of Show World. It is amazing.
In any case, literary prose can sell products. Several years ago, I ran some racy American Apparel ads that caused some controversy. It would be interesting if AA ads had micro-fictions paired with them that illuminated what the girl was thinking, revealing what's under her surface.
From my piece:
"I end up at Show World, and I hand the guy my cash, and I get in the booth, and the curtain slides up, and there’s a girl dancing on a pedestal in the middle of the round room, and she’s totally naked. This is why I love this city. There isn’t anything you can want that you can’t find in it."
Image via PRIVATE
I wrote a couple pieces for NYC, 1981, which is a "website inspired by the upcoming film 'A Most Violent Year.'" I saw the film, as well, which I liked a lot. "Margin Call" remains my favorite J.C. Chandor movie. ("Maybe you could tell me what is going on. And please, speak as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. It wasn't brains that brought me here; I assure you that.") I wrote about "The Rise and Fall of the King of Swing."
"Since 1977, Larry Levenson, the son of a kosher meat businessmen, had presided over Plato’s Retreat, a Manhattan nightclub best described as Studio 54 for swingers. For $35, suburban couples could swap sex partners with hundreds of other likeminded individuals, join the orgy in the 'mattress room,' swim in a pool with a waterfall, soak in an enormous Jacuzzi, feast on an expansive buffet (the selection included chow mein, potato salad, and cold cuts), screw strangers in private rooms, or dance naked to disco music."
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Times Square of yesteryear is being replaced by luxury condos.
"It's been a long time since the Times Square area was better known for its porn emporiums and crime problems than as a hub for Broadway theaters, throngs of tourists and eye-popping lights and displays."
[WSJ]
