Watch this: Bill Cunningham New York

I canceled my netflix DVD delivery option and chose to just keep the streaming portion. (Yea, stick it to you netflix)

Limited with options, I've been frustrated, but then I found Mad Men and I can say that the next few months will be focused on that.

Anyway, Bill Cunningham New York is also available on netflix streaming right now, and I'd encourage you to watch immediately. I missed it when it was in theaters and couldn't wait until I could watch it elsewhere.

Documenting the daily life of famed New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham as he bikes around town capturing the eccentric styles of New Yorkers. He photographs different styles, not the cookie cutter classics that make many of us blend in with the rest of the street. Think Anna Wintour + drag queens + former club kids + Parisian celebrities that just knock our style out of the park.

It also focuses on Bill's life as one of the last remaining tenants of Carnegie Hall, his minimal lifestyle of cheap breakfasts and coffees and his lack of care for "guest lists"

The movie makes you want to give this man a hug...and also completely change your wardrobe.

[Stop Motion Project] - Sara Bareilles Uncharted Cover

Super creative. Love it.

Looks like people are trying out WSJ Social

More on the new site here.

Hoseanna - I will sing your praises @HoseannaKnows

I feel like the founders of Hoseanna were listening to my prayers. Or maybe they saw me one day running from work to CVS to pickup the 9 things I was missing in my apartment, 2 blazers from the dry cleaner, dropping off more stuff and then showing up to dinner sweating with my hair frizzed and demanding a glass of wine.

Either way, I'm glad I just read about this site and I want to tell all of my friends about it.

From the release: "Hoseanna (http://www.hoseanna.com) delivers women’s monthly 'must haves’ with the ease they want, on the schedule they need. Or the "Netflix of nuisance products." (Ironic on that tagline giving today's craziness.)

So think of things that us busy females always need, but never have time to buy...or want to buy...they're not a new pair of shoes. Tampons. Deodorant. Toothpaste. Even condoms (Her Pleasure---nicely done) You just go on and choose the brands/items you want, select an auto-ship frequency based on your schedule (I wonder how that works with the condoms) and go on with your busy life.

I'm seriously signing up right now. We'll see how it goes, but heck even if only some of my items come in on time I'll be happy.

If they can add in female prescriptions too then I think I'll just call it a day and say buhbye to ever visiting another drug store.

Brava.

Review: Spiderman, Turn off the Dark

Photo via Broadway.com

Saw it last night. Seats were in the "Flying" sections which means that 1)no one can fall on you 2)Spider-Man literally jumps on a ledge 2 feet from your seats.

Here's my review.

• Stunts: Unreal. Flying Spiderman and Green Goblin all over the theater. Literally, flying and jumping right before your eyes. You won't see that in Billy Elliot, that's for sure. This was probably the best part of the entire show.
• Actors: Voices were unbelievable. Reeve Carney (Spiderman) and Jennifer Damiano (Mary Jane) will be Broadway big timers soon enough.
• Set: Overproduced. I mean, was that treadmill in the middle of the stage needed to let the audience know they were "walking through town?" No.
• Music: OK. I think. None really stuck to me, but it wasn't bad. And they had a ringtone go off that was U2's "Beautiful Day" so bravo on the inside jokery there. Very rock, power songs but there was no "Seasons of Love" that I was dying to go buy.
• Story: This is where I'm confused. I don't know if there was one. I know the story of Spiderman. But they also added 3 other lines in there that kind of messed it all up.
• Costumes: AMAZING. The other goblins looked unreal and amazing. They should win endless awards for this (did they?)

Overall: I won't be running back to see it again, but I think the experience in itself is worth seeing. It's different. It is more of a "visual show" than a Broadway musical. It's edgier and you feel like you're watching a mix of technology/3D visuals + Cirque du Soleil in one.

Stop blaming social media- it's 2011

Have you read about the recent ConAgra blunder with bloggers? I'm not going to get into it. You can read it here. Things happen. Campaigns go awry and you try to make the best of an idea as well as you can. And you never know exactly what type of situation all parties involved were in. At the end of the day, lessons were learned and you move on to the next.

But after reading that article, the thing that stuck out the most was the defense line put up by the Public Relations Society of America that "the social media realm (including bloggers) is new territory for public relations practitioners, and I view this as a valuable learning opportunity.”


It's not new. It's 2011. Almost 2012. Social media has been around for awhile now. And even without those two words, what happened with ConAgra wasn't about social media, it was about a decision that was made in launching a campaign.


Stop blaming it. Just accept that things go wrong sometimes and you can learn from it for the next time.

Open sourced theater

I CANNOT wait to see Godspell (mind the $125 price ticket for any seat in the house---come on). The show, one I performed in my middle school theater days is fantastic telling the story of a selection of gospel stories with a musical vibe. It's not religious heavy, I promise. It's fun. And the cast is shaping up to be a running list of young actors that have proven themselves to own the stage already. Yes, Hunter Parrish I'm referring to you and your butt that I saw during Spring Awakening. 

This show also has a new spin on how it was produced. Open sourcing the production. We always talk about Open Source in technology.  Making things available for others to "hack" on and interact with, collecting public feedback to make something or make it better. This time,producer Ken Davenport decided back in 2010 to do the same with this play. He's been chronicling it here on the blog. Pretty cool (and I wish I had put some $$ down just to be part of the experience here)

It's an interesting thought to theater - an industry that we all know is pretty set in its ways and makes changes only once every so often. The crowd-sourcing model, bringing on multiple producers who put in a smaller investment than usually asked of them, may call attention to this trend more so in theater.  While the investment model may not transfer to every show, the fact of adding in group feedback to it could really make a change in how things are produced. 

And, why not? As Ken says:  "But there is no reason that every show/theater/artist shouldn't have an online suggestion box, or some way that your audience can propose adjustments to what you do to help make it better. " 

Of course there still needs to be one "funnel approver" but in a time when new ideas are sometimes the ones that someone from the outside needs to provide, we could start to see more "different" shows come to the Great White Way. Hell, now that Book of Mormon is so big and changed, for many, the way we look at Broadway shows, there needs to be something to shake this place up.

Sara Bareilles - Little Lion Man (Mumford and Sons cover)

Not from my show last night at Central Park, but she did this and it was unbelievable. If you have never seen her live and enjoy her music, see her next time she's in town.