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Drew Grant

By Drew Grant 6/18 6:42pm

Transom

Acme Studios (Photo via Aimee Herring)

The Acme Funhouse

On an unseasonably cold Saturday afternoon, rogue taxidermy diva Divya was setting up scalpels, Borax and a table of colorful items at the prop warehouse-cum-event space Acme Studio in Brooklyn. If it weren’t for the animal heads on the wall, we may have been more disturbed when Divya brought out the day’s “project”: dead mice, ready to be turned into art.

But the strangest plot twist of the day was yet to come: At 6:30 p.m., when most people were still putting the finishing touches on their dead mouse tableaux—a gynecologist named Jerry had created a gruesome/cute doctor mouse who was performing his own internal surgery—the class was ushered out. Acme began to transform into something resembling an old-timey mental institution, complete with working hospital gurneys and what looked to be a genuine gynecologic table. (No word from Jerry on this.) Read More

By Drew Grant 6/18 4:44pm

girls

Photo via Tina Wargo

Girls Fan Enlists Lena Dunham for STD-Inspired Tattoo

This is way better than that time Mick Jagger signed your aunt’s chest in Sharpie and she didn’t take a shower until 1988: On June 8th, Tina Wargo took to Twitter asking for help getting Girls creator Lena Dunham to handwrite the phrase “All adventurous women do,” for a tattoo.

Not only did Ms. Dunham comply, but she sent several samples of her script, neatly drawn in cursive on a napkin, to Ms. Wargo via Instagram. Ms. Wargo, who apparently had no qualms about spending her life with a reference to contracting HPV on her ankle, uploaded her new ink last week. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/18 3:13pm

Media

Tony Robbins owns an island and you don't. (YouTube)

Tony Robbins Guest Edits Private Islands Magazine, Owns a Private Island

Self-help guru/reanimated Easter Island moai Tony Robbins is back! After conquering all bad feelings and motivating himself to the highest levels of success at seminar-giving, the founder of the Unleash the Power Within (UPW) was tangled up in an embarrassing PR blunder last summer after administering treatment for “minor burns” during his firewalking retreat.

But it’s like the saying goes: when life gives you lemons, convince a bunch of people to pay $10,000 for a four-day lemonade making class, and using the net profits, buy a private island in Fiji. Then just kick back and wait for the prestigious Private Islands Magazine comes calling. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/18 1:01pm

video

Video

Does this pig make my ass look fat? (YouTube)

Creatively Groomed Dog Show Attracts Yoda, Big Bird and the Criminally Insane (Video)

Hershey, Pennsylvania: It’s not just for chocolate anymore! It’s also where, each year, one of the several Christopher Guest-ian contests for the most “creatively groomed” dog is held.

And if you thought Westminster was stressful, wait till you see what these owners put on their puppies in order to win the prize money, which can sometimes be as much as $60,000. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/17 2:06pm

Viral Video

Video

Just enjoying his weekend. (YouTube)

Central Park Daddy-O Has Life Figured Out (Video)

While you were busy writing out a list of neutral topics yesterday to discuss during your terse, obligatory five minute Father’s Day phone call (verboten items, as always: your career, your love life, how mom’s doing), this roller-skating poppa said “Screw it” and went to the park instead of waiting for his kids to call. Why stress about family when you can just strap on your quad skates, go to Central Park and dance like nobody’s watching?

In this era of over-snark and legitimate concerns of Big Brother-monitoring, it’s truly refreshing to see a man who doesn’t care what people think of his good time moves. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/17 11:12am

the nanny diaries

Malu Custer Edwards, Mickey Hurley (Patrick McMullan)

UES Nanny of Socialites Suffered From Encephalitis; Blurring Charges of Abuse

The latest case of nanny-abuse, reported in The New York Post today, has some complicating factors that keep it from being the regular sob-story of rich parents gone wrong.

Namely that the nanny in question, 50-year-old Chilean native Felicitas del Carmen Villanueva Garnica, has been diagnosed with encephalitis after running away from the “captivity” of her former employees, whom she has worked for since 2010. As anyone who has been watching Hannibal this season can tell you, the condition, an inflammation of the brain, most commonly manifests itself in patients with seizures, loss of memory and vivid hallucinations.

This is not to imply that Ms. Villanueva’s claims are any less legitimate, only that any private defense attorney worth their salt will most likely use the nanny’s psychiatric and medical records, such as they are, to their clients’ benefit. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/11 7:30pm

Party Reports

AndrewAndrew (PatrickMcMullan)

One Half of AndrewAndrew Cares About the New Citi Bike Program

Last Wednesday night, the Transom found ourselves schmoozing with an intimate crowd at the Paley Center after the Peggy Siegal screening of the Morton Downey Jr. documentary, Evocateur. It was an eclectic mix of media personalities: Dan Abrams, Regis Philbin, Dick Cavett, Gloria Allred, Donny Deutsch and Richard Bey (whom we had at first confused for Jay McInerney until he started talking about the time he’d had Gennifer Flowers on his radio show). As we cast around for other familiar faces, we happened on two men wearing identical suits, glasses and slicked-back hair.

And thank God we did, because you know it’s not a Paley Party until AndrewAndrew—the “iPad deejays/brand consultants,” as they were referred to on Girls (although that leaves out the duo’s other vocations as theater and restaurant critics, hosts of an East Village radio show, fashion designers and interior decorators)—show up. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/11 7:18pm

Fashion

Strapping in for the long haul. (Photo by Vecchio/Three Lions/Getty Images)

Bra Boutiques Bloom as Big Bazongas Bewilder the Bamboobled!

As a young woman, one of the most memorable coming-of-age moments is being taken to get your first bra: equal parts mortifying and thrilling, it’s one of those prepubescent rites that most adults wouldn’t care to repeat.

And yet a colleague and I recently found ourselves re-enacting a scene from Judy Blume in the bathroom stalls of The Observer offices, trying to assess our respective digits under Jockey’s new numbers-only sizing system. The Volumetric Fit Bra sizing kit contains a measuring tape and 10 plastic cup molds labeled numerically. You try each one until you find a fit, like a soft-core Cinderella. “Do you think this plastic cup makes my boobs look bigger?” I joked. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/11 4:47pm

Coney Island

thunderbolt-1053129--525x350

Coney Island Revives Thunderbolt Coaster, With a Little Help From Fried Chicken Scions

Back in the early days of Coney Island, there wasn’t anything amusing about amusement park rides. They were more horrifically scary than anything else: compared to the Parachute Jump or horse diving, the boardwalk’s two roller coasters, The Cyclone and Thunderbolt, must have seem tame in comparison.

But we’ve long since learned that simulating a skydiving with steel cables acting as your landing gear isn’t the safest thing in the world and throwing a horse and rider into deep water from a diving board is downright cruel. Add to that the constant battle over converting AstroLand into Luna Park, Hurricane Sandy’s destructive path and the closing of Coney Island Eight , and one could be forgiven for doubting that the glory days of Coney would ever return.

Yet somehow, miraculously, Luna Park was able to open again this summer, as was Nathan’s, both of which experienced damage after Sandy. And the news today is even more cheering: the return of the Thunderbolt, which was bulldozed in 2000 to make room for the Brooklyn Cyclone’s stadium. Read More

By Drew Grant and Noam Cohen 6/10 11:46am

Game of Thrones

Drop the mic. (Alex Bedder)

Five Essay Prompts for Game of Thrones Season 3 Finale: ‘Mhysa’

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Dads … right? For a show that has shown us how powerful a mother’s love for her children can be–Dany and her dragons, Cersei and her son, Catelyn and her children–this week’s finale bludgeoned us over the head with the opposite. Apparently all dads hate their sons, to the point where getting the LITERAL “dick in a box” of your only male offspring can’t sway you to pull out of a losing battle. From the rat lord to Tywin’s admission to Tyrion to the revelation of the identity of Theon’s torturer as the bastard of Roose Bolton, is there such a thing as a positive male parental figure on this show? Read More