BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

First he made "Old Glory" condoms that came in red, white and blue. Then he got them patented as a patriotic anti-AIDS device after a fight with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Now he's submitted a formal proposal to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a Disneyfied Vegas-style Resort & Theme Park in Nantucket Sound called ''Martucket Eyeland.'' It's an award-winning commentary on an actual plan to install a controversial wind farm of 130 turbines in the Sound.

Artist's rendering of Martucket Eyeland [Illustration by JeanPaul Raymond]Trouble is, according to the Cape Cod Times, the proposal could land its creator, Jay Critchley, in jail. "By submitting the proposal to the Army Corps" for a development permit, "he triggered a federal review" -- and if it's judged a hoax, "Critchley could face five years in prison and fines up to $10,000."

An artist's rendering of the resort-cum-theme park, above, shows a nuclear power plant, a shopping center called Meltdown Mall, a replica of the Pilgrim monument, a casino for family-friendly gambling, and a ferris wheel that turns on a wind turbine. Doesn't the Army Corps realize Critchley's proposal is satire? A Corps spokesman told the Cape Cod Times it's not his agency's responsibility to determine intent, so it will begin the preliminary process of determining what federal agencies should be involved. Hello?

Postscript: Looks like Critchley's been saved by the U.S. Senate. His proposal won't need to be reviewed. Nor will any others.

April 4, 2006 1:02 AM |

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Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
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This page contains a single entry by Straight Up | published on April 4, 2006 1:02 AM.

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