a walk in the park

Spent the weekend in NYC with lyonesse, to celebrate 15 years of indiscretion. This is more about the trip than the indiscretion, or the significance of Big Round Number anniversaries, although that's all worthy of some shmoop.

We took the Greyhound/PeterPan bus down, because it was cheaper than driving (expecially since driving inevitably means parking), and almost an order of magnitude cheaper than the train. Of course, every college student in Boston had the same idea, so the line was all the way to New Hampshire by the time we got there. And then we got to flatten our butts for 4½ hours while the crazy guy in the next seat muttered, cried, and ultimately drank himself to sleep. But we saved a bucket of money so that we could eat extravagently, which we did.

Extravagent breakfast at Hotel Pierre on Central Park - crab cake eggs benedict, lemon ricotta pancakes with cherry topping. Quick visit to the Society of Illustrators exhibition of sequential art. Interesting, but not memorable.

Much more intresting was the Dahesh Museum. They only have two exhibit halls, but they pack a lot of punch for all that. One has paintings and a few sculptures from their permanent collection. Some of these were what I was hoping to see at the Illustrators museum - they reminded of the works of N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle - pictures that told or suggested a story, full of pathos and life. It's not the only kind of art I like, but I do like it.

The other gallery has their current exhibition, First Seen: Photographs of the World's Peoples, 1840-1880. These pictures were taken shortly after photography was invented, when colonialism and "racial science" were coming into full bloom. Ethnographic studies were commissioned, to catalog and categorize the peoples of the Realm. A lot of it was exploitive, and a lot of it was staged, but it's still a window onto a world that was a lot more tribal, before efficient transportation and communication homogonized everything. Granted, it was going on even then - there's a portrait of Tasmanian aborigines in Victorian suits and gowns. There are also portraits of famine, child labor, and summary execution; it wasn't a better world, but it's a world that's gone from us now.

Extravagent lunch at the tea room of the Takashimaya department store, followed by an exploration. I don't spend much time in department stores, much less high-end department stores, much less Japanese high-end department stores, so this was...anthropological.

Extravagent dinner at Aquavit, a sort of nouveau Scandanavian restaurant. They have a dress code (no jeans or sneakers, jackets recommended), so naturally I wore the Utilikilt. We spent a long time in the bar before our table was ready, so this isn't about the food, it's about the drink. I mean, the food was imaginitive, and impeccably prepared, and utterly tasty. But at the end of the night, are you going to be able to describe a dish that required an entire paragraph in the menu? Or are you more likely to blurt out "horseradish-infused vodka?" That's right, horseradish. infused. vodka. It was peppery (natch), and...buttery. It was really good.

Sunday, we met up with the legendary Jym Dyer, and walked around Central Park to check out The Gates. I know it's fashionable (and amusing) to bash Christo, but this was pretty cool. In a derisive reference to Christo, Tom Parmenter quotes Terry Teachout's paraphrase of Hugh Kenner's definition of conceptual art: that which, once explained, need not be experienced. This was the opposite - you had to experience it, and even then couldn't explain it. Pictures really don't capture what it's like to walk along under these...I wouldn't call them gates, really. They march on and on, branching and joining. I still don't know what exactly Christo was trying to get at, but I do know that it brought a zillion people out to the park, to walk around on a chilly weekend, and got them talking about art and the nature of art. And really, there's nothing wrong with that.

( Pictures )

andy

Just got mail from my bike-buddy Andy. He's not dead - always a good thing. He's also developed freeware for planning cellular radio networks, thereby single-handedly subverting his old employer. (He's also wearing the "I Biked Monarch Pass" t-shirt in his "about the author" photo.) Go him.