Marquee Modification by Mooney's

dailyheights

Subject: Marquee Modification by Mooney's

Last week, daveb was chatting with the friendly bartender at Mooney's, who admitted to him that he was one of the perpetrators of the movie marquee rewording that's been going on for the past few months: "His accomplices include a sheriff, a playwright and one other who's occupation I can't recall."

[Ed note: These aren't the first anagrammers to be outed. Paul Berger wrote about sign-alterer David Collins in his blog and in an article for the New York Times (requires registration).]

daveb wrote: "If I had any doubts as to their story, I lost them when upon returning to the bar, I noticed near the back lurked a small, slightly shifty and wordy crew of late-night marquee pirates, puzzling over the arrangements of of letters cut from a newspaper, jotting down possible reformations in a notepad for future nocturnal recombinations."

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PREVIOUS ARTICLE ABOUT THIS? We took it down. We had been told the New York Times article about the "other" mystery anagrammer contained inaccuracies. Upon further investigation, it turns out that was inaccurate...

qtrain

dailyheights wrote: We had been told the New York Times article about the "other" mystery anagrammer contained inaccuracies. Upon further investigation, it turns out that was inaccurate...

What does this mean, exactly? That Collins was correctly attributed as the author of all the combinations discussed in the article?

dailyheights

No, actually the New York Times article by Paul Berger doesn't attribute any of the anagrams to anyone in particular. The article does state that David Collins did the first anagram, and then says that his work "has inspired at least one other anagrammer" to do the same. Then, the article goes on to list several of the anagrams, but does not specifically attribute any of the anagrams to anyone. Please see the full text of the article below.

---

David Collins, a tall, thin, 43-year-old father of two, was tired of seeing the marquee of the Flatbush Pavilion display the same film titles since it closed in May 2004. There¹s only so much staring at Œ¹Van Helsing'¹ and Œ¹Man on Fire'¹ that a man can stand, especially when the titles appear on both sides of the marquee. So one night last month Mr. Collins, an investor relations consultant, lugged out his stepladder and took matters into his own hands. He climbed up and rearranged most of the letters to spell Œ¹Hanna Have Snail Venom For Ginseng Firm.'¹

Since then, street life outside the Seventh Avenue subway station on Flatbush Avenue has never been the same.

Mr. Collins¹s first anagram set in motion a series of witty and often intriguing titles that change two or three times a week. His work has inspired at least one other anagrammer to scale the marquee at night to reshuffle the 39 letters (the marquee had an extra R). Who would not now wish to see Œ¹Gene Sang of a Virile Man¹s Infirm Love'¹ or Œ¹Hangmen on Fire,'¹ the Supreme Court drama Œ¹Nine Vain Men Form a Gavel of Lies,'¹ or the horror flick Œ¹Sinning Men in Hell Vanish From a Grave'¹?

Œ¹It was like eye pollution with those two films just sitting up there,'¹ Mr. Collins said one night last week as he knelt on the sidewalk rearranging the letter tiles. Œ¹I thought if I changed it, it might make people think a bit more about their surroundings.'¹

Indeed, the message boards at the Web log Dailyheights.com have been full of suggestions for alternative films and even rumors that the graffiti is part of a guerrilla marketing campaign. Last week, someone complained that Van Helsing should be returned, and Mr. Collins¹s reply was swift. Within a couple of days, he turned the M upside down to form Œ¹Van Helsings AWOL in Iran.'¹

With enough letters to spell Miers, FEMA and Nagin, expect more topical offerings coming to this theater soon.

candicissima

So as I remember, one of the points of contention was that the Mooney's people were first and not Collins. That was false?

rhodamine

apparently, it happens in ireland also:

http://www.citynoise.org/article/153

bill c

not sure who was first. again, the mooneys bunch pride themselves on using all the letters. the times story pictured a number of van helsing anagrams, some of them by the mooneys people, who felt that it gave the misleading impression that the other guy was responsible for all of the pictured anagrams. they've been publicly obsessing about this for a long while now so anyone who has been in the bar is aware of their role in it.

rhodamine

bill c wrote: not sure who was first.

does it really matter?

laura b

... wasn't Television's "Marquee Moon" a great album?

8)

smokin joe

lemme get this straight: the administrator shut down a popular thread based on what a bartender told him were inaccuracies relating to not giving said bartender proper credit for posting the first anagram on the marquee?

do other threads get similarly vetted for accuracy?

why should we believe the bartender's story is more accurate than the times's story? (it may well be, but i don't see how you verify either one.)

wouldn't a better solution than shutting it down, which seems a bit heavy-handed, be to just post the revised version with the bartender's claim and let the open forum sort it out?

carnivore

Laura B wrote: ... wasn't Television's "Marquee Moon" a great album?

8)

Yes.

See No Evil still rocks.

dailyheights

Smokin' Joe wrote: lemme get this straight: the administrator shut down a popular thread based on what a bartender told him were inaccuracies relating to not giving said bartender proper credit for posting the first anagram on the marquee?

No. You are incorrect. You have it backwards.

daveb's post suggested that somebody in the Mooney's crew thought David Collins was incorrectly credited for their anagrams in the New York Times article by Paul Berger. This turned out to be wrong, as stated above. I shut down this "popular" thread because *Paul* told me about the inaccuracies, not the Mooney's bartender.

wouldn't a better solution than shutting it down, which seems a bit heavy-handed, be to just post the revised version with the bartender's claim and let the open forum sort it out?

No. The best solution was to shut down the thread until someone had time to methodically "sort out" what had already been unraveled by the "open forum."

smokin joe

aha! got it now. thanks.

qtrain

I wish we could delete inaccurate Times stories.

*kicks the ground*

dailyheights

Originally uploaded by urbanstrategist.

This was a really puzzling anagram in the Flatbush Pavilion series ... Certainly not as amusing as "Elvis Lives" b/w that thing about the new fan running away grinning... uh... what did it say?

So is this one of the Mooney's Crew, or the lone gunman father-of-two from Park Slope?

Thanks to urbanstrategist for adding this to the Prospect Heights Photo Pool.

muteflute

beautiful!

flute

Carnivore wrote: [quote=Laura B]... wasn't Television's "Marquee Moon" a great album?

8)

Yes.

See No Evil still rocks.

oh, and speaking of CBGB's (via Television) ... Patti Smith ... at BAM ... 12/1 ...

(off topic ... yeah .. but Laura B started it !)

:oops:
8)

anonymous

This was a really puzzling anagram in the Flatbush Pavilion series ... Certainly not as amusing as "Elvis Lives" b/w that thing about the new fan running away grinning... uh... what did it say?

So is this one of the Mooney's Crew, or the lone gunman father-of-two from Park Slope?

There's a restaurant in Bay Ridge called Arirang that sings a really obnoxious birthday song....so I'm guessing this was the father-of-two for his kid's eleventh bday.

The other side of "Elvis Lives" reads "He ran home from Ann a grinning fan"