I hope some of my students from fall’s New Technologies class can attend. RSVPs are required.

The Penguin Press Presents: Together Alone: “The Penguin Press Presents celebrated public intellectual Eric Klinenberg, author of the forthcoming GOING SOLO: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, and Clay Shirky, author of the seminal HERE COMES EVERYBODY: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, coming together to discuss what it all means and where we’re all heading.”

Earlier today, one of my teammates from the Ball Busters sent me a video of me getting a base hit through the right side (the 3.5 hole, no less). It’s not that the hit was unusual—I regularly hit the ball that way—but in late January, softball seems so foreign. It was nice to remember seeing a sunny day in New York, my wearing shorts, and of course, playing softball in Central Park.

Thankfully, softball is only about 10 weeks away.

The first significant snowfall since late October brought a relatively minor amount of accumulation, but here in the city, the snow went through an accelerated pace through its usual steps. First it snowed, leaving a thin blanket of powder, which was quickly turned to slush. Now, it looks like it snowed three days ago and the grey sidewalk slush is going to make crossing streets an adventure.

Winter is here. Groundhog Day is about two weeks away. But for now, we got slush.

As I come to Bobst Library during the intersession period, the lower level study area looks wonderfully deserted. During the last week of the semester, there were people in these seats throughout the entire day. Some were studying, but a good number of them were sleeping.

Bobst Library will remain calm for another week, until classes begin in the third week of the month. At that point, the spring semester will begin again and the bustle will return.

As I walked around Long Island City this afternoon, I noticed that the building housing the former Jackson Avenue Steakhouse has made a little change to its exterior. The first story of the building, including the new sports bar and even newer Caribbean restaurant, is now blue. I guess they chose that scheme to clash, as much as possible, with the red awning. Or figuring that since so many flags use the red-white-and-blue combination and are pretty successful, it should work just as well for a sports bar.

I haven’t been to this spot since the old Steakhouse was temporarily closed for health violations, then abandoned its $8 “burger and brew” special, and then changed its name to Al’s Steakhouse. I noticed that it had reopened as a sports bar some months ago, but I never felt compelled to go in. Take a guess if I’ll be going there anytime soon.

The marathon has come to New York City again, and shortly after they reach the halfway point, the runners come to Long Island City and Vernon Boulevard.

As we’ve done for the last few years, we stood outside among the crowd and enjoyed a beautiful day outside, and I snapped off about 1,000 photos. After hours of reviewing, I posted about 100 of the better shots to my photo gallery.

While I shot photo after photo, Sarah made a snarky sign, reading “It’s Not Going to Run Itself,” in response to my “Get the lead out!” and “Finish Already!” jeers. Julia screamed more encouraging words into her megaphone, and Nicole cheered throughout the whole thing. It’s always good when they come to watch the marathon, otherwise I’d just stay in bed and sleep too much.

I’m looking forward to spectating again next year.

This Tuesday, the students from my History of Film class from Fordham University, Lincoln Center visited the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. I haven’t been there since the museum underwent a major renovation about two years ago. I was concerned that many of the best parts of the museum were gone, but that concern was for naught. They were all there. Since I have an obsession with old electronics, especially those preserved and presented at museums, I had a blast shooting photos of all these objects.

The tour also complemented a great deal of material that we covered throughout the semester, especially in the beginning. We saw the usual pre-cinema toys and devices, such as the magic lantern, the thaumatrope, and the zoetrope. There were of course more contemporary objects that we cover in recent classes, such as a Vitaphone disk and projector, Technicolor camera.

I’d judge the class trip as a success. A couple of students seemed enthusiastic about seeing in person a lot of the objets that I’ve described in painstaking detail. One student in particular wrote an email to thank me for arranging the trip. And one student, who I judged to be a regular at the museum, was very enthusiastic about the screenings there.

Sarah, who occasionally takes the East River Ferry, sent me this photo to show that the relatively new service is already haunted. Yikes!

Happy Halloween, everyone.

The fine folks at the Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City launched their annual tribute to Halloween with a Friday night screening of the William Castle classic, The House on Haunted Hill (1956). The tribute continues tonight with separate-admission screenings of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). The latter film, a German silent expressionist masterpiece, will be screened with live organ accompaniment.

Last night’s screening had two treats for architectural nerds. The first is the building itself at the Loews Jersey. It opened in 1929 as an outpost of the MGM-Loews movie empire and at a reported cost of $2 million, it was an example of the picture palaces that not only screened movies but sought to give audiences a transformative experience. The architectural style appears a little behind the times, as it borrows heavily from Gothic, cathedral structures that were common at the turn of the century. By the 1920s, it was more common to see Art Deco as the dominant style, but aside from old Radio City Music Hall, which opened a few short years later, most movie theater architecture remained unchanged since the end of the 1910s.

The second treat came from the movie itself. Sarah and I found that the exterior of the titular house looked familiar, and very similar to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House in Hollywood. Poking around the Internet Commons, I found that the exterior shots were of Ennis House, a Lloyd Wright work and has been compared to Hollyhock (below).

The house has also been used in several movies, including Blade Runner and L.A. Confidential, and it has often been the home and lair of movie villains, an assessment I remember encountering in Thom Anderson’s essay film, Los Angeles Plays Itself. It seems a bit odd that the trip to Jersey City really seem to evoke sentimental feelings to L.A. Maybe it’s time I take a trip to L.A. for more than four hours.

This is the earliest I have seen had snowfall in New York City, and possibly only the fourth time since the Civil War when it has snowed before Halloween. That’s pretty significant because only two years ago, it was Halloween, on a Saturday, and it was warm.

Not this year, it turns out.