Hats Off To Our Friends (Red Sox Hats That Is)
Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by BrianSimpson in Community, Hotel
Back in January Adam Wallace and I (Brian Simpson) had the chance to speak at Jeff Pulvers #140Conf Meet-Up in Cambridge, MA. While we were there we were invited, via Twitter, by The Colonnade Hotel (@Colonnade) to come have lunch and talk ‘social media’. We met with Chris, Nicole and Katie at Brassarie Jo’s inside the Colonnade. A couple of weeks later Katie was in NYC for business and stopped by to say hello and visit The Roger Smith. This is how connections and friendships evolve. Last week I decided I needed a new Red Sox hat, and in my opinion, there is only one place to buy one, Yawkey Way – outside of Fenway Park. I spent the weekend in Boston and enjoyed amazing hospitality at The Colonnade. As a resident of Boston for thirteen years The Colonnade was always my popular Summer hang-out due to their great rooftop pool! Being able to actually stay there was indeed a treat. I even ran into a couple people I knew that now work there. Because of their involvement and commitment to social networking I have a new Boston ‘home’. If you are ever in the Boston area or live near Boston I suggest you go by for a room, a bite to eat or a drink by the pool (Summer only). You will not be disappointed.
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand ‘Check-Ins’
Posted on 20. Feb, 2010 by BrianSimpson in Community, Hotel, Lily's Restaurant
Last Thursday afternoon I received a call from my friend Julia Roy. Julia had been approached by Susan Dominus, of The New York Times, to participate in an article Susan was doing on the social network FourSquare. Julia asked if it would be O.K. to do the interview at Roger Smith Hotel. Her reasoning was to hopefully include other FourSquare users in the article. (on most nights there is someone here “Checking-In” on FourSquare) This gesture alone shows why people like Julia excel in social media. FourSquare is a way of sharing your dining, shopping, traveling, museum hoping, train riding and sight seeing experiences with other people.
FourSquare is about the strength of community. To quote Kenneth Hartley Blanchard “None of us is as smart as all of us.” Julia could have done the interview on her own and it would have been great. She would have shared it, the twitterverse would have re-tweeted it and the world would continue to spin about one thousand miles per hour. Instead, Julia recognizes the greater strength and potential energy of community. Everyone has an audience: Damien consults on building your companies brand. Clay has studied under Seth Godin and now assists a variety of businesses with their overall strategies. Jill has a loyal community on YouTube as a videographer that surpasses most of its users. I (Brian Simpson) work at Roger Smith, a hotel that has become a go-to business for all types of social media personalities.
Collectively the story became what platforms like FourSquare stand for… connecting friends and strangers with commonalities to create conversation.
Jill Hanner's NYSC Mayorship
It was a great night and we at The Roger Smith Hotel wanted to thank Julia for including us. I/we would also like to thank Jill, Clay and Damien for sharing their unique and individual insights as to why FourSquare is important to them.
“Beyond Twitter: An App That Truly Lets You See City”
JOIN FOURSQUARE NOW: Here
Susan Dominus
Special thanks to: Susan Dominus, writer for the NYT and Nicole Tung Photographer for the NYT
One Night Only a Benefit for Haiti
Posted on 16. Feb, 2010 by aleksdegtyarev in Arts, Community, Events, Hotel
February 21, 2010 7pm-12am
Roger Smith Hotel | 501 Lexington Ave. New York, NY
16th Floor Solarium Gallery
$20 suggested donation
As Social Media Enthusiasts, The Finderz enjoys doing their “Social Good”. We find what’s interesting in the world and on the internet – which includes finding causes we want to support. After the tragedy in Haiti, we want to gather our resources & spread the word about helping out.
Since the Roger Smith Hotel is so socially connected, we’re honored to partner with them in our endeavor to collect unused or unwanted clothing for Haiti. We’ll be distributing donations to the Red Cross, Yele, and other charitable foundations.
Join us for a night of “social good” with a taste of the arts, drinks, & good company!
————
Dee Nuncio
Social Media Adviser & Writer
Half-to-Help has teamed up with the Roger Smith Hotel, Panman Productions, and Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA to bring you our first Haiti relief art show and concert. The benefit will begin at 7pm. Musicians Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys and Charlene Kaye will be performing. Exhibiting artists include Carl Avidano, Lazarus Nazario, and Shawn Taylor. The artists are donating half of the net proceeds from any art sale to support Haiti earthquake survivors via Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA. $20 suggested donation at the door. 100% of suggested donations will go to Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA for Haiti relief.
Live Video Performance collaboration by FreakCast.
Music:
Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys
Artists:
Sponsors:
Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA
Live Video:
Fourth Sunday’s Concert Series
Posted on 05. Feb, 2010 by Editor in Arts, Chamber Music Series, Events, Hotel
New Music quartet loadbang presents a unique program of all-original music conceived by members of the group. Each member (Alejandro Acierto, bass clarinet; Jeff Gavett, baritone voice; Andy Kozar, trumpet; Will Lang, trombone) has contributed equally to the project by composing one quarter of the program.
These new pieces take advantage of loadbang’s facility in improvisation, while pushing the ensemble in new directions. Andy Kozar’s work for this concert is a kind of translation; Chinese characters are stripped of their semantic meaning and broken down into shapes to be realized as musical contours. Jeff Gavett’s work is concerned primarily with formal aspects of time. Large temporal divisions are delineated with great specificity, but the ensemble is left to fill these durations on the fly, improvising and imitating one another. Finally, one half of the group’s compositional personalities will be heard for the first time as Alejandro Acierto and Will Lang will present their premier compositions for loadbang.
All of the works to be presented are literally experimental: each performer-composer has branched out into unknown territory musically and notationally. Guided improvisation. Game pieces. Graphic scores. Loadbang’s originals straddle these categories.
The Solarium, The Roger Smith Hotel
Tickets $15 at the door, cash only
For reservations please contact 212.339.2092
or rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com
Elena Andujar @RShotel for the love of New York and Flamenco!
Posted on 03. Feb, 2010 by Editor in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Hotel
We became friends with Elena initially through the Iberian Festival, which was an annual Spanish cultural event, held at the Rog, that featured culinary superstars such as Santi Santamaria, the Cándidos and their Cochinillos, Don Felix Duran from the paradisiacal Pyrenean town of El Quer Foradat and many, many more. With Elena’s collaboration, the festival evolved from a primarily culinary event to a broader celebration of Spanish culture and a new focus on flamenco and on Andalucia in general.
She arrived in NY that year – almost 10 years ago – with her nine year old son, Antonio, in tow and moved in to the Roger Smith for a month. During the festival, Elena sang and danced a few nights per week, with little Antonio attending each tablao and occasionally stepping out to dance a few moves or drum on the cajón…a crowd-pleasing foreshadow of the talent he would later develop! When he wasn’t performing with his mom, he would cruise the hotel, a relative Eloise let loose in a new a fabulous place, full of interesting things and people.
Elena Andujar, born of a Sevillana and a New Yorker, uses flamenco to bridge the cultures that she represents. Her work includes festivals, self-produced espectáculos, master classes and even early-stage plans to make a movie of her life story, set here and there. Her bigscreen career began when she was cast in the movie Devil’s Advocate along with flamenco great, Tomatito, to perform with Al Pacino.
So…as we knock around the idea of reviving the Iberian Festival, we’d love to hear your feedback! Let us know your thoughts!
From Hackers to Brand Evangelist; Tormod Askildsen tells a story about LEGO
Posted on 02. Feb, 2010 by AdamWallace in Community, Hotel
When I (Adam Wallace) was recently in Amsterdam representing the Roger Smith Hotel at Enterprise Social 2.0 I had the pleasure to meet Tormod Askildsen and hear his great story of how they created an extremely loyal community of fans, by during around a situation that initially seemed very negative for the company.
Tormod Askildsen is the Senior Director for Community Development at LEGO. He tells a story of how LEGO’s software got hacked in the 1990′s and the way that this threatened the company. Eventually they started to realize that they could leverage this excitement and new use of their tools that their fans were doing. They made a big turn around and ended up engaging their fans and creating a whole vibrant scene and community of LEGO enthusiasts.
Electric Womb (Cycle One)
Posted on 01. Feb, 2010 by aleksdegtyarev in Arts, Events, Hotel
ELECTRIC WOMB (CYCLE ONE) With help from Panman A.K.A John Knowles & Abi Prince A.K.A Fire Monster FreakCast and Lulu will embark on their next live show venture @ Fresh Long Island. Check it out:
FRESH presents: Electric Womb (Cycle One)
February 4, 2010
@ Toast
Port Jefferson, NY, 11777m
7pm – 11pm
For more Info contact: FreakCast.tv@gmail.com
Electric Womb
By FreakCast and Happymooncake
We may all be living inside of what we refer to as an Electric Womb. This is both a negative as well as a positive space. To explain this we choose the allegory of the internet as one example of an abstraction that is both tangible and intangible at once: an ever evolving fabric, made of fibers, to create and over all expression that maybe as of yet impossible to shoot out from and see from all sides (at least for us). It has been regarded as a “world wide web” in which we live and communicate through, where we garner platitudes of sustenance from and find it evermore difficult to separate our lives away from this space (be it negative or positive.)
New generations are being born into this space every day and they, unlike our generation, may never know through actual experience what it is like without this fabric, this web.
What does this mean for us? This is the first question.
Science tells us that electricity exists. If you type in “electricity” into google the first response in the search will be the wiki entry for electricity.
It states: Electricity (from the New Latin ?lectricus, “amber-like”[a]) is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts, such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction.
In general usage, the word “electricity” is adequate to refer to a number of physical effects. In scientific usage, however, the term is vague, and these related, but distinct, concepts are better identified by more precise terms:
Electric charge – a property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interactions. Electrically charged matter is influenced by, and produces, electromagnetic fields.
Electric current – a movement or flow of electrically charged particles, typically measured in amperes.
Electric field – an influence produced by an electric charge on other charges in its vicinity.
Electric potential – the capacity of an electric field to do work on an electric charge, typically measured in volts.
Electromagnetism – a fundamental interaction between the magnetic field and the presence and motion of an electric charge.
What is most interesting here could be that science (if science is an entity of knowledge) refers to electricity as a phenomenon. A meditation on this will lead any thinker to several smiling revelations. But that should not be vastly important. The fact remains, the human/animal body has always been induced by this phenomenon which has inevitably connected us to nature. Not to mention the notion of conduction. If the body may be about 60% water than we are perfect vehicles for the movement of this charge. We seem to reside in a space (such could be its property) that by this principle should be magnetized by this charge and so, we have all the capacity to control the fundamental interaction of polarity.
This seems to correspond with the philosophy of magick: the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will. And for whatever reasons the notion of 2012 has everyone talking, thinking outside the box, hypothesizing, people are charged up on this issue. There certainly seems to be a great polarity of how people feel about these impending circumstances. Time keeps on moving and the years keep changing.
In the spirit of communication evolution and the recognition of these circumstances. FreakCast and Happymooncake are prepared to run certain experiments in various spaces reserved for such work. If we recognize our current conditions as an electric womb, then by the laws of nature something must come of it.
A birthing, a miscarriage, an abortion, a spiritual marriage, another greater womb… All possibilities are possible and we would like to investigate and get a greater divined insight into those possibilities.
Pedro Sousa Photography Exhibit in the Roger Smith Lobby Gallery
Posted on 30. Jan, 2010 by aleksdegtyarev in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Hotel
The Exhibit is Open: January 4 – March 12, 2010 Roger Smith Hotel Lobby Gallery 501 Lexington Ave. The Opening Party: 2.26.10 Time: 7:30pm @ Roger Smith Solarium Gallery
Last Studio Visit by Marlo Brown
Pedro Sousa and I have an enduring relationship; for a long time he wanted to kill me. His rage towards me wasn’t unwarranted. If you know anything about me, Marlo, you wouldn’t suspect otherwise.
In 2000 we were both attending Stony Brook University. Pedro had a sweet studio on the fourth floor of Staller Art Center. He was sharing the space with several artists and it was no-holds-barred-art-making-central.
Pedro is a photographer, so naturally he kept his tools at his studio space. Why wouldn’t he? It’s not like anyone went back home in those days or took days off from making art-stuff. While other artists prized their brushes and oil paints, Pedro’s payload was about eight cameras and loads of lenses.
On one particular day I remember visiting the collective studio space. A girlfriend of mine hung out with that crew and she probably wanted to see her ex-boyfriend who shared the studio with Pedro. To say I knew these art-folk would be an over statement. I maybe had met some of them once or twice. It’s a good bet I didn’t know anyones’ name. And if Pedro was telling this story, I’m pretty certain he would stress the exclusive nature of those studios. This was a tight knit community to which I wasn’t even worth spitting on. I was a freshman, but i certainly did not regard myself as such.
Back in those days I wasn’t easily impressed. Everything and everyone, that is, besides me, was “pretentious.” Being in a room of older more “established” males was not doing anything positive for my ego. Clearly these were a bunch of pretentious dicks! With a judgment of that caliber I took out a cigarette and lit it.
I almost remember smoking it out the window…
That was it. The rest was related by Pedro in a death threat back to my girlfriend of that time. He accused me of burning down the studio, but in more visceral words than that. To this day no one really knows if the cigarette I was smoking was the cause of the fire. One party believed it was. I believed otherwise.
What’s more, nobody cared for apologies which later morphed into half-excuses. In fact, certain members of that studio still consider me an arsonist and a prick, and I very well maybe a prick. But, I can tell you dear reader, that it was not my intention to create this animosity nor to burn down any studio.
Why am I telling this story here? Well, it’s a testament to Pedro really. He lost the most in that studio and at the same time he was the first to forgive me. After we moved on beyond that mishap, I was able to clearly see that here was a guy that was neither pretentious nor a prick.
Pedro is one of the most driven guys I know. He’s got the skills to rally people for a cause. To get shit done! Straight out of college he opened a gallery in a dead art zone known as Long Island. It is a miracle that his space held out for six years –packing out the house at every opening.
That was almost all Pedro’s work. While others spoke of a vision he executed his. He enabled other artists and himself by having a space to show work. For artists that is a huge deal! Having an art show means that you must produce. If you keep producing your work matures, you build a portfolio worth showing, collectors become interested, etc. Pedro fostered not only this space but its culture as well. He created a community where people could experiment and show those experiments. I was no exception.
Under terms that I would not burn down the gallery Pedro let me into this culture. I felt a belonging and now other people were looking at me as the pretentious dick. It was a great feeling. We were able to pull off all sorts of great events and spectacles: film festivals, experimental video nights, vaudeville art shows and other performances. The space like the people around it were in constant evolution.
When Pedro closed the gallery it was a surprise, but he listed the fact that he was spending too much time doing administrative work and not enough time producing art as a major factor. Sure, now that I am curating both the Solarium Art Gallery and the Lobby Gallery at the Roger Smith Hotel, I can relate. That is why I proposed an art show to Pedro as well as a co-curatorial role.
That is the relevance of community, of friendship, of culture. It is the ability of relation. To be able to relate is far beyond understanding. That is the torch that we carry and pass to each other. Back and forth it goes…
Adam Wallace & Ellen Petry Leanse (GOOGLE) from Amsterdam!
Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by BrianSimpson in Community, Hotel
Adam Wallace of The Roger Smith Hotel is one of the special guests at The Future of Web 2.0 Meet-Up in Amsterdam.
Here is Adam speaking at the Meet-Up with Ellen Petry Leanse, Head of Enterprise Marketing Communications- GOOGLE (USA).
Julia, a dog named Waffle & The Ghost of Roger Smith
Posted on 21. Jan, 2010 by BrianSimpson in Community, Events, Hotel
Last night in the Penthouse of The Roger Smith Hotel Matt Semler & Danika Druttman, of The Lab Gallery, along with Julia Kaganskiy (MoMA) hosted a gathering of arts and tech enthusiasts. The main purpose was the introduction of smART Camp, a weekend long event in March, that will bring together influential artists, social network professionals and a community of people looking at ways the two are utilized for the exposure, education and sales for the art world.
The hotel, as many of you know, has a mysterious energy that seems to bring out the storyteller in all of its visitors, last night was no exception.
If you are skeptical… don’t believe me, believe Julia, Michelle Adam and a dog named Waffle.
