In Flavorpill NYC this week, I spoke about my recent trials and balmy tribulations in getting my new A/C unit into my window. And, it appears my sweat was not all in vain! One faithful and informed reader wrote in with a detailed installation procedure, and the diagram you see above. So: if you find yourself in a similarly sweltering predicament, check out Dean’s advice, after the jump. And if you’ve got a horror story — or a remedy! — post it in the comments.

This was That Weekend. That one I’ve heard about from friends, warning me of my eventual fate: that scorching weekend when I would be forced to set up a window A/C unit. As a former Californian, I’ve languished in this city’s summer humidity for years, too cheap or stubborn to give up my meager fan. Last Saturday, I finally gave in. But nobody told me about all the sweaty obstacles I’d encounter on the road to a 70-degree living room. I hadn’t immediately considered the laborious, $20 cab ride required to get the A/C home from PC Richard & Son — or how the heck I was going to install it. People, is there enough cardboard and duct tape in Brooklyn to keep that thing from falling out my window? A central-air lover wants to know. (more…)

This week in the NYC mailer, Flavorpill editor and sci-fi geek-in-residence Chelsea Bauch takes a look at the literal and figurative monsters of our cultural imagination.

If Cloverfield’s CGI monster left you yearning for the days of masks and latex, then the organized mayhem of the Kaiju Big Battel may fill the Godzilla-shaped hole in your heart. KBB is a live-action parody of Japanese monster movies (known as kaiju) — or, to be precise, it’s an imitation of spin-offs like Godzilla vs Mothra (1964), which adopt the form, but not the substance, of kaiju classics. Each performance features costumed contenders — including farcical favorites like Uchu Chu the Space Bug and Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle — who fight each other with the theatrics of luchadores and the fervor of apocalyptic prophets. (To see the spectacle in action, hit New York’s Webster Hall this week.)

Like American horror films, the best kaiju movies hold a strong social subtext: Frankenstein (1931) may be a warning against hubristic pursuit, and King Kong (1933) an allegory for man’s triumph over nature, but Godzilla (1954) is an equally trenchant critique of nuclear armament, and Mothra (1962) a sly parody of blind religious worship. (more…)

This week in the NYC mailer, our Music Editor, Andrew Phillips, examines the Obama-hip-hop connection.

When an old-school icon like Afrika Bambaataa is spitting to anything short of a stadium, one thing becomes crystal clear: progressive rap isn’t dead, but it is in a state of underground internment. That’s not to say that ‘Bam’s appearance this week at APT won’t be an out-and-out stunner, but simply that his influence doesn’t extend as far into the mainstream as, say, 50 Cent’s. (As we here at Flavorpill learned with last weekend’s One Step Beyond Party, up-and-coming acts like the Cool Kids and Kid Sister can certainly pack the house, but it takes a surprise appearance by Kanye West to make the masses go really crazy). Perhaps that’s why presidential contender Barack Obama spends less time with out-and-out progressives and more energy breaking bread with hip-hop’s bigger (often badder) boys. (more…)

In this week’s NYC mailer, Flavorpill editor Alex Abramovich takes an in-depth look into culture, compassion, and Celine Dion.

Carl Wilson’s new book, Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, is the 52nd title in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series, and the first to set the series’ mission statement on its head. Instead of bringing his critical faculties to bear on a single, seminal album, Wilson — who writes for Toronto’s Globe and Mail, blogs at Zoilus.com, and reads this week in Greenpoint and on the LES — confronts Céline Dion’s multi-platinum (and much-despised) record Let’s Talk About Love. But the diva’s just a jumping-off point: Wilson uses Dion’s record as a crowbar, and pries open the assumptions and prejudices which shape our tastes in the first place. (more…)