It's A Good Time Friday! - 10.27.23
I hope you like Ghostbusters...
Happy final Friday of Orange October, happy final lunar eclipse of the season, and happy Game 1 of the World Series!
I didn’t mean for this month’s links roundup to be primarily Ghostbusters-themed, but I kind of fell down a rabbit hole and it made me happier than a toaster filled with pink slime dancing to Jackie Wilson. So here we go:
➡️ The story of the six Piccirilli brothers who were responsible for executing some of the most famous sculptures in New York and beyond (o hai, Lincoln Memorial) is fascinating — as someone who’s never picked up a chisel in my life, I never realized how stone-carvers and sculptors worked in concert to execute these massive works.
And as I was watching both Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 last week, I realized how much of the Piccirillis’ work turned up there.
The first movie opens with a shot of the lions at the New York Public Library, then you see the Maine Monument at Columbus Circle after Rick Moranis gets possessed.
The ‘busters do run through Rockefeller Center at one point, but there’s no closeup of the bas-reliefs. And in the second movie, the “Manhattan Museum of Art” is actually the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House.
Side note: Of course Scouting NY did a post on the Ghostbustersfilming locations and noted that “one of Reitman’s goals in shooting was to focus on New York statuary” — duh! Also, if you are ever in New York and you want a personal tour of all the filming locations, I would be happy to oblige. Hit me up!
OK, fine, enough about my lifelong obsession with Ghostbusters (1980s flavor)...
Ohhh but speaking of flavor… I do have one more can of Ecto Cooler beer in the fridge that I’m saving to drink on Halloween proper. If anyone else out there — anyone I’m not related to by blood, that is — drank way too much Ecto Cooler as a child, I would love to hear about it.
➡️ Let’s talk about another film that was deeeefinitely not as popular as Ghostbusters, shall we? Back in June, we visited New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia as part of our big summer road trip. The mining ghost town (sort of) of Thurmond is part of the park, and of course we love a good abandoned building (or five), so we had to see it.
But that’s not the craziest part. And to learn about this old mining town’s star turn in the movies, you should just read the post I wrote in June and totally forgot to tell you about until now. Whoops!
➡️ Finally, something that brightens up the sad scroll of my Instagram feed every day: Art But Make it Sports. If you love art and you sometimes have a vague sense of what’s going on in sports, you will love this too. I mean, this Keith Haring pairing (hahahah) is just one tiny example of this guy’s genius.
