My studio still smells vaguely of whipped topping. Not entirely unpleasant, kinda like the scent of Thanksgiving year round. And a great conversation starter when after hours breaks out.

I still haven’t seen the Borat movie. Not from lack of trying. For some reason OBG and I thought it’d be totally fine if we walked into Van Ness multiplex ten minutes before the late night Friday show couple weeks back. Surprisingly enough about 400 drunk freshman had beat us to every seat. Go figure.

Itching to see something (and not too keen on waiting for the posse of 18 bonged up high schoolers in the refund line who had also gotten dis’d on tix) we ended up sitting down to the opening credits of The Prestige not expecting much.

We were wrong.

Turned out to be a damn dark abracadabra parable about getting what you wish and paying dearly for it…again and again. Stars badass cockney Christian “I’m Batman” Bale, and the Aussie actress who’s feminine charms are rivaled by few. That’s right: Hugh Jackman. Oh yea, and Scarlett was in it too.

One of the far and few between smart enough to realize celebrity plastic surgery shouldn’t attempt to make you look any more than 10 years younger than you actually are, Sir David Bowie, makes a more than small appearance playing no less than Nikola Tesla, the man responsible for inventing x-rays, wireless communications and robotics, and who could’ve made free wireless electricity and anti-gravity a reality for the masses had he been taken seriously by his era’s money-hoarding morons of industry. I’m guessing Ziggy settled for playing the scientist because his traditional roles of God, messiah alien and leotard clad baby eating demon Labyrinth master got 86′d out of the final script.

Directed by Chris Nolan, man who helmed Batman Begins, Memento and the only U.S. remake of a Norwegian masterpiece to effectively channel their cultural gestalt of predominantly solitude and pain, yet satisfy the typical American movie goer’s need for their tragic heroes to be driven to evil by external pressures and lack of options…rather than the closer-to-reality choices of moral ambiguity and self-preservation over all else…the movie’s visually amazing and narratively solid, despite a few undistractingly predictable turns. Especially since the ending isn’t a happy Hollywood one despite the obivous Hollywood budget. No one’s a hero, and everybody dies. More than once. Which makes the events leading up to the creepy final scenes even nastier, and the movie an ultimately great if not 4-star example of American gothic cinema.

UPDATE: In response to the comment from Anonymous, I’m thinking that referring to a culture borne of axe wielding Viking conquerors who’ve lost half their population to the Black Death, been occupied by the Nazis and whose backyard’s been filled with icebergs for the last 12 millenium as one of “solitude and pain” ain’t too far from the mark, and far from a broad brush stroke.

Biggie in Bed-Stuy, age 17.

Now try and tell me Big Poppa’s not the one, only and forever King of New York.

Former fellow Cambridge dot.com rockstar Dapper Dan recently got a chance to promo his site Burritophile on San Francisco’s Bay Area Backroads. He pulls off being quite charming while dropping science on his favorite cuisine. I’m thinking, though, that ratings would most likely gone throw the roof had he been able to convince expert reviewer and lovely burrito diva Indiana Cate to join along for the TV op. Meeeeeee-ow.

Check out the sans Cate clip here:

Middle of this past summer, OBG got a sweet gig building an outdoor rooftop bar, lounge and topiary dinosaur garden for a Hugo Boss party in Manhattan. He ended up moving to New York for the month, working on the Island with an Ocean’s 11esque crew made up of fabrication rockstars from around the country…and living with a bunch of 20-something female bartenders and grad students in a Brooklyn 3 floor with an in-ground pool.

He’s always been charmed when it came to Craigslist sublets.

Turned out he was still there for his birthday, which prompted me to fly out and follow him around for 3 days. Somewhere between inhaling welding fumes and leading at least fifty toasts to my little brother’s third decade as the Prince of Chill, I ended up snapping some pics. Of the publicly publishable subset the most interesting were 7 random street and sidewalk tags, mostly from Carol Gardens and Williamsburg, including a couple of street prophecies, several interesting Kilroys and one really cool mural.