"The Circus has mounds and mounds of exotic manure," says spokeswoman Isabella Gevorkian. "[It’s] an inexhaustible supply of mineral-rich fertilizer, generated constantly and in gargantuan proportions by the elephants and other beasts on the Circus lot every day."
Not only that–it is "high-class manure." Whereas your typical cow or homeless person might ingest hay, stale coffee and one fourth of a Big Mac on a daily basis, elephants eat apples, loaves of bread and peanuts. This leaves their effluence high in nitrogen, phosphorous and calcium, making it good for lettuce, radishes and other organic fare. You can’t just pick up elephant materiel and pack it in with your ficus plant, however. The exudate must be weathered by sun and rain for months until it becomes odorless; only then can it be added to vegetation.
Gardening solutions aren’t all the Cole Bros. Circus has to offer. Isabella continues: "We also have the Whirling Wheel of Wonder; some call it the ‘Wheel of Death.’ It’s like a pendulum that rotates in the air and a guy runs on it and because it goes so fast by his movement he is forced to jump... Latin Americans love that kind of dangerous act."
All right, Latin Americans! And let’s hear it for cheap tickets–admission is $14, or $22 if you want to be a VIP. Call for show times; the act runs from Thursday to Sunday before it moves elsewhere. You know, like a rave.
...Speaking of which, everyone I know who did lots of ecstasy in high school is still short. It’s like Groove Munchkin Nation. What’s up with you people? How come your voices haven’t changed? Why don’t I see this on Drug-Free America commercials? It’d be a lot more sobering than fewer colors in that chintzy brain scan.
...From drug use to drug use: Iranian artist Ashkan Sahihi is back in NYC with a terrific project. Ashkan procured a number of 24- to 28-year-olds, put them each in a sterile room, got them high on a substance of their choice and photographed them experiencing themselves. He then ran one photo of each person in Vice two months ago. His portraits were clean, expressive and monstrously funny, especially the one of the guy bugging out on mescaline. Since July 1, he has had his 11 pictures on display in Queens as "The Drug Series" at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46 Ave., Queens, 718-784-2084).
Go to Sahihi’s show and you get it all: 48-by-60 prints of Crack, Cocaine, Heroin, Marijuana, LSD, Psilocybin, Ketamine, Ecstasy, Amphetamine, Hashish and the aforementioned Mescaline. His subjects look like the morph sequence at the end of Michael Jackson’s "Black or White" video, with a jolly bald black woman on pot and a Beavis-all-growed-up caricature on hash. It’s almost a United Colors of Benetton ad, or the next step in reality media. Or maybe it’s a chance for white America to see a crack user who isn’t Designated Crackhead Darryl Strawberry. The crack user in "The Drug Series" is a terrifying white woman who looks like her pupils are pulling her insides out.
"Crack-Girl. Men react to her very strongly," Sahihi explains. "They always want to help her. And you know Crack-Girl–if she gave that picture to her grandmother, [her grandmother] would say, ‘You’re prettier than that.’ That’s an empty picture. It’s a bad portrait. But when you introduce a drug to a picture, you add a third power that just comes in and takes the model in a way that the model has no way to remain focused on the camera, and the photographer has no real power, or no intention even, in my case, to hold on to the model."
Sahihi’s show runs until Sept. 30; it costs $4 to get in and P.S. 1 is open from noon to 6, Wednesday through Sunday.
...New parties! New parties! Special drinks! Strangers! Nights of mirth! First, Baktun (418 W. 14th St., betw. 9th Ave. & Washington St., 206-1590) has reopened with a cabaret license, and now its only sticking point is the meatpacking smell that greets you as you approach. Inside, it looks like Idlewild (145 E. Houston St., betw. 1st & 2nd Aves., 447-5005) with small projection screens reminiscent of Fun (130 Madison St., betw. Market & Pike Sts., 964-0303). In other words, Baktun is just like the bad guys’ chill basements in James Bond movies! The screens show trippy fractals and the a/c is high-powered; one of the doormen sports the best handlebar mustache I’ve seen in New York.
This Saturday Seoul and Cassien, two of the more regularly employed NYC DJs, come to Baktun with a night of jungle drum & bass. That’s "jungle drum & bass," not jungle, not drum & bass, but something entirely different. The party’s called Direct Drive and it’s a $12 cover, with an open bar from 10-11 p.m. and dancing until 4. As you leave Baktun, scope out Lotus (409 W. 14th St., betw. 9th Ave. & Washington St., 243-4420) across the street–guaranteed you’ll see couples where the girl looks like Shannon Elizabeth and the guy looks like Gary Shandling. Grrr.
...The woman who designed Lotus’ interior, Nancy Mah, has moved on to Tiki Room (4 W. 22nd St., betw. 5th & 6th Aves., 646-230-1444), a venue that opened in May intending to bring a modern tiki bar experience to the Flatiron district. Now, tiki bars are those thatched huts that they hang out in on Baywatch. The Tiki Room reinterprets them with plastic-encased loofah cocktail tables, flat-screen tv’s and an 18-foot-tall tiki icon whose head you can sit in (that’s the VIP lounge area).
When owners open a new club, they generally need established "talent" to bring people in, and so veteran DJ Penelope Tuesdae is doing a night of "Rok Slut" at Tiki Room next Tuesday. The tagline for the party is "Rok-n-roll made me its bitch," which I guess is a good thing; it starts at 10 with no cover and lasts until 2 a.m. The music will be rap and rock hits that you’ve heard before–those new owners aren’t going risk pissing off their clientele–but you will get the chance to explore two floors of brand new furniture. And if you’re one of those with an ever-present laptop bag: they have Internet hookups.
