Lifestyle
Secret Tunnel Discovered Under Brooklyn Synagogue Sparks Chaos
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A massive secret tunnel was discovered under a historic Jewish synagogue in NYC — and when the authorities tried to shut it down … sheer chaos ensued from the guys using it.
Wild footage is circulating online showing a frenetic scene Monday at the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights — serving as the meeting location and place of worship for Orthodox Jews in that area … and it all has to do with this hidden passage.
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Long story short … this underground enclosure leading into the synagogue was stumbled upon last month by civilians who reported hearing weird noises under their homes.
There’s reports that a select group from this synagogue were using the tunnel to access a shuttered women’s bathing area … plus other areas in and around Brooklyn, it seems.
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Anyway, leadership from this synagogue decided to shut this whole thing down — bringing in construction crews to seal up the tunnel with cement … but apparently, the fellas who’d been using were outraged and started rioting within their own holy institution, and cops came out.
That’s where all these clips come in — showing the Jewish clashing with cops, overturning furniture and seemingly trying to hunker down in their tunnel to avoid it being closed up.
At some point, someone went down into the tunnel itself and recorded a little walk-through — and you can see these fellas made themselves at home … draping their clothes all about.
In the end, it looks like they were able to close the lid on this secret hideout — probably for the best, TBH. The idea of dudes lurking around underground is … well, kinda ‘TMNT.’ 😅
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Lifestyle
There’s Nothing They Can’t Sing and Laugh Their Way Through
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When their venue burned down in the Eaton Fire five weeks before their wedding, Marnina Schon Wirtschafter and Micah Aaron O’Konis did what any comedic musical duo would do: They wrote a song about it.
“We made a plan for rain, but we didn’t think to plan for something this insane,” reads the lyrics to a song they wrote called “Our Wedding Venue Burned Down in Altadena.”
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
Mx. Schon, which is the last name she uses professionally, and Mx. O’Konis both identify as genderqueer. Mx. O’Konis also identifies as nonbinary — and they have a song about that, too. In “People Think We’re Straight,” Mx. O’Konis sings, “Please don’t call me ‘bro,’ please use they/them pronouns if you heckle me during the show.”
Mx. Schon was only mildly interested when she matched with Mx. O’Konis on Hinge in February 2016. Mx. O’Konis had two strikes against them: They had attended a rival college (USC to Mx. Schon’s UCLA), and lived across town (no small thing in Los Angeles).
Nevertheless, the instant rapport they had on the phone changed Mx. Schon’s mind. Both are creatives: Mx. O’Konis is a writer, performer, guitarist and composer. They wrote a musical about gun control called “More Guns!” that was picked up by Second City Hollywood and ran on Saturday nights for two years. Mx. Schon is an actor who starred in “More Guns!”, as well as a violinist and writer.
Both worked in Jewish education: Mx. Schon as the program coordinator at IKAR, a nondenominational synagogue in Los Angeles, and Mx. O’Konis as a Sunday school teacher at the Silverlake Independent JCC in Los Angeles.
What also helped Mx. Schon agree to a first date was that Mx. O’Konis had a car and would drive to her. “From the moment I picked Marnina up, we hit the ground running, and had our conversational rhythm,” Mx. O’Konis said.
Mx. Schon was due at a friend’s birthday party, so they had dinner nearby at El Coyote Cafe, a landmark Mexican restaurant. Mx. Schon then brought Mx. O’Konis to the party at Da Poetry Lounge in the Fairfax neighborhood, introducing them to her friends.
They ended the night over drinks at the Surly Goat in West Hollywood, where they shared their first kiss.
When Mx. O’Konis got home, they spun around singing, as does Will Ferrell in “Elf,” “I’m in love, I’m in love, I don’t care who knows it,” to their roommate, while Mx. Schon canceled her pending Hinge dates.
Their creative connection soon became part of their romantic one. Later that year, they took a class together with the Upright Citizens Brigade improv group. They moved into the Los Feliz neighborhood together in 2017. In 2020, when Covid shut down theaters, they began writing and recording songs together.
Now called Couplet, the duo will appear daily in the Assembly Festival lineup of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August.
In November 2023, Mx. O’Konis surprised Mx. Schon by proposing in the doorway of their home, just before heading to Nativo, a Mexican restaurant in their neighborhood. Mx. Schon later proposed at the restaurant, which included a crossword puzzle she made of their inside jokes.
Mx. Schon graduated with a bachelor’s in communications; Mx. O’Konis with a bachelor’s in music and composition. The couple, who are both 31, now live in the Highland Park neighborhood.
Rabbi Sharon Brous, of IKAR, married them at Valentine, a downtown events space, on Feb. 16 — the ninth anniversary of their first date — in front of 177 guests. The venue had given them a deep discount after the William D. Davies Memorial Building in Altadena’s Charles S. Farnsworth Park, their original venue, burned down.
Mx. Schon wore a beaded headpiece her mother wore at her wedding, with a flowy white jumpsuit she bought secondhand on Poshmark. Mx. O’Konis wore a white suit.
“You’re my favorite collaborator,” Mx. Schon said in her vows. “You accompany me in every way imaginable.”
“I fell in love with your laugh first,” Mx. O’Konis said in theirs. “If you wanted to, you could start a cult with your laughter. You shouldn’t do that, but you could.”
The flower girls carried California wildflower seed packets to the huppah. The packets were passed to guests before the breaking of the glass, with a plea to help reseed Los Angeles.
“Out in the world things are bleak, look at all the bad stuff, from just this week,” the couple sang to their guests at the reception. “But maybe the community we’ve gathered here can turn around this broken year.”
Lifestyle
Gene Hackman Died More Than A Week Before He Was Found, Sheriff Believes
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Gene Hackman
Hackman Died Feb. 17, Officials Believe
… More Than a Week Before He Was Found
Published
Santa Fe County Sheriff
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department held a news conference to give an update on the investigation into the deaths of legendary actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, this afternoon — and, it sounds like Gene was dead in the New Mexico home for a week and a half before he was found.
Sheriff Adan Mendoza led the news conference as deputies continue to look into the deaths they labeled “suspicious” in a department application for a search warrant this week.
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During the press conference, Mendoza says Hackman’s pacemaker shows its last event on February 17 — indicating that’s when it stopped and when he died. Mendoza said autopsies and toxicology reports were pending, but he said both individuals tested negative for carbon monoxide, according to the medical examiner.
Mendoza is laying out the timeline of events … explaining how officers discovered Hackman, Arakawa and their dog deceased in the home. Animal control got involved to ensure the two living dogs — who appeared healthy — were kept safe.
Mendoza says there were no surveillance cameras inside or outside the residence that could aid officers’ investigation. They’re working to determined when Gene or Betsy last contacted anyone.
As you know … Gene and his wife Betsy were found dead in their home Wednesday afternoon after a caretaker of their neighborhood dialed 911 to report seeing a body in the couple’s house, and deputies responded to conduct a welfare check.
The caller was incredibly emotional … and, when first responders arrived, they found Hackman, Arakawa and one of their dogs unresponsive. The three were pronounced dead at the scene.
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Getty
Cops are looking into the death they’ve labeled as suspicious for a variety of reasons … like numerous pills spilled out on a bathroom counter, an unlocked front door, and no obvious signs of a gas leak.
The sheriff and the Santa Fe fire chief spoke on “TODAY” Friday morning and admitted they weren’t ruling out the carbon monoxide poisoning theory … since the bodies weren’t found for some time and gas could have dissipated. But the press conference dispelled that notion.
Hackman was 95 … Arakawa was 65.
RIP
Lifestyle
With Video Mapping, Destination Weddings Can Happen Anywhere
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When Jonathan Dubin, 34, and Madison Bigos Dubin, 30, hosted their wedding reception last October, they transported their guests to Upper Antelope Canyon in Arizona.
Only the reception was held at Cipriani 25 Broadway in downtown New York.
The couple accomplished this sleight of hand through video mapping, or video projections that effectively paint large surfaces like walls and ceilings.
“I had to remind myself that I was in a ballroom because the atmosphere was so immersive,” said Hutton Cooney, a guest who flew in from Chicago.
Mr. Dubin said the images of Upper Antelope Canyon were intended to evoke the feeling of celebrating inside the canyon, which is near the resort where the couple would be honeymooning in Utah.
Panoramas of the New York City skyline followed. The finale was aerial views of the Empire State Building as the D.J. and a saxophonist played a rendition of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” while many of their 250 guests sang and danced.
Mr. and Ms. Dubin, both real estate entrepreneurs in New York, said that video mapping appealed to them because it immersed their guests in places they love. For Ms. Dubin, who is from Minnesota, it was an opportunity to give family and friends from home “a quintessential New York experience.”
With couples increasingly integrating technological innovations into their weddings, video mapping is gaining popularity at ceremonies and receptions, according to event planners and other wedding experts.
Julie Novack, a founder and chief executive of PartySlate, an event planning platform, said that video mapping has its roots in the corporate and nonprofit world. (It has also long been used in contemporary art.) “It was first widely adopted by companies around a decade ago for product launches and to project their logos,” she said. “It’s now finding its way into social events like weddings. ”
Victoria Dubin, Mr. Dubin’s mother and an event planner in New York, said such projections are increasingly an element of the weddings she plans (including her son’s). One couple she worked with in May 2022 chose one that evoked an Italian Renaissance garden with mossed walls, fountains, statues and frescoes on the walls. “The bride and groom thought about getting married in Europe but chose to bring their vision of Europe to New York,” she said.
Video mapping can come at a high cost, with pricing falling within a broad range. Patrick Theriot, a projection designer and the founder of See-Hear Productions, based in Covington, La., who has designed projections for Victoria Dubin said, “Projecting on the side of a forty-story building may require $100,000 or more in just hardware rental, but projecting on a wedding cake may require an equipment rental of less than $5,000.”
According to data from the wedding platform Joy, video mapping was a $3.9 billion market globally in 2023 and is projected to surpass $4.8 billion this year. The company’s chief executive, Vishal Joshi, estimates that wedding video mapping is currently a $100 million industry in the United States, with couples projecting onto cakes, dance floors or entire venues.
The Temple House in Miami has an in-house production team that creates content. Couples can choose from their extensive projection library, which includes a starry night, fireworks, sparkling rain, disco balls and the Italian Riviera. They can also request custom projects.
Omar Lopez, director of events at Candela La Brea, a venue set in a 1920s building in Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile, said, “We host around eight weddings a year that use video mapping, and that number is growing steadily.”
Henry Rodriguez, 46, who works for an education nonprofit, and Suriel Castro, 35, an office manager who lives in Long Beach, hosted their ceremony and reception there last August, which was attended by 225 guests.
Both events included backdrops of cherry blossom trees. When it was time to dance, the room alternated between rotating disco balls and flashing lights. “We wanted to create a nightclub ambience,” Mr. Rodriguez said. He said they spent more than $3,000 to include the projections, and “the expense was well worth it.”
Video mapping isn’t limited to indoor areas.
Alyssa Carrai, 27, a photographer, and Daniel Carrai, 26, a creative director and founder of the production studio Sever, who live in Charlotte, N.C., included it in their wedding reception last April. The celebration, which 75 guests attended, was at the Andrews Farm, in Midland, N.C, in an outdoor area with a swimming pool and white house.
Mr. Carrai, who has used video mapping in his work with music artists, designed an abstract chrome silver projection that was displayed on the home’s exterior and resembled moving water.
“It felt like you were moving through water when you walked by,” he said. “Our guests told us the projection was unlike anything they had ever seen.”
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