very simple

one of the multitude of tom otterness statues that are scattered around the union square subway station.

Usually, I don’t understand the “modern art” piece consisting of metal slats attached to the side of the building that houses my gym and local post office. But today, I think I finally got it.

guggenheim

After trying to figure out where to go on this really beautiful day, I discovered that, in honor of it’s 50th anniversary, the Guggenheim was actually free today. I knew there’d be a line and whatnot, but free is free. So I went over.

The line actually moved pretty fast – even though it was wrapped around the block, it only took about 20 minutes to get to the front door. No pictures allowed anywhere inside except from the ground floor (in what I’m sure is an attempt to force people who want to remember the Kandinsky exhibition to buy the official merchandise), but it was still pretty cool. Except for all of the people, of course.

First, after I had progressed through 3/4 of the line and was in sight of the front door, there were these two women who very blatantly tried to cut the line in front of the person in front of me. I, of course, tapped them on the shoulder and pointed out the line that wrapped around the block. They got very bent out of shape, and in very thick french accents, attempted to claim that they were “press”. I was all, “so what?” – pointing out that if there was actual special press access, they should go talk to the guard, not cut in line. Needless to say, they got out of line. One of the folks in front of me was also a french tourist, and he was a bit mortified at his countrymen, but he said that shit happens all the time in France, because everyone else is too polite/timid to actually call someone out. He said he really noticed it when he went to japan and was completely horrified by the french tour groups that came through. I sympathized, as I often wanted to run and hide from American tour groups exhibiting the same sort of “ugly tourist” behavior whilst I was living in Italy.

Then, of course, there were the folks who would plant themselves directly in front of you while you were reading a description or timeline so that you only got a view of the back of their head.

And then there was the bus ride home, where people simply forgot how to behave in public. blocking doors, not moving back, deciding to try to (finally) move back to grab a seat only when about 18 people from the back of the bus were actually trying to move forward to get off the bus. I actually (again, being my loud new yorker self) had to tell two women to stand still so that everyone could get off the bus, regardless of the fact that they felt entitled to a seat (behind the people trying to exit) that had opened up.

But anyway, here are some pics. 365 pic is first, and then a collection of others that you can click on to enlarge.

So, after much wrangling this morning with the easyjet website, much of which involved the fact that they kept rejecting my American Express card (which makes no sense, as I was able to use it 20 minutes later to book a hotel on Expedia) and my having to break out the backup, never used, Mastercard, I can now safely say that I’ll be spending Christmas weekend in Paris. Because it takes a whole hour to fly there. How cool is that?!

We get a four day weekend for the christmas holiday here, because apparently the 26th is also of religious significance in Italy. I have no idea what significance, as I am not even christian, let alone catholic, but four days seemed like a good enough amount of time to jet off to another city for a few days, particularly when everything in this city will be closed anyway. I had been thinking I should go to London, just to sate my apparently monthly need to speak english, but I’ve been to London plenty for work, and I was just there in May.

I have been to Paris before, twice, but the last time I was there was in the year 1999, and that was only for a day stopover between legs of my post-bar exam three-week bicycle trip through the French countryside. So it seemed like a good idea. Plus, it will (hopefully) make me actually like the city for once.

The first time I went to Paris was when I backpacked/Eurailed through Europe between college and law school, which is now over ten years ago. The first part of my trip, I was travelling with a "friend" from college who had been living in London for six months (and had previously studied in Paris). Unfortunately, said "friend" spent all of the money she was supposedly saving for the trip on a TEFL course, so that she could go to Korea and teach english for two years. Which was great for her, but severely limited her ability to do just about anything on our trip. So I met up with her in London, where she was living, so that was free. Then we went to Paris. We travelled by ferry, which was a high-speed catamaran-type boat, and I spent the entire way over just absolutely seasick. Just thinking about it now, ten years later, I still get green. We finally get dropped off by the bus, in the middle of Paris (not at the train station like our ticket said), with no French money, at five in the morning. This was years before the Euro conversion, so we had to change money every time we went over a border. So we finally, laboriously, find an ATM, and make our way to the cheapest hotel in the guidebook (remember, friend with very little money).

This hotel…well. About the only good thing you could say about it was that it had a great location. It was right down the street from the Pantheon, so it was easy to go other places. But the hotel itself. Friend and I got a "double" room that still managed to involve us having to share a bed. I have never been so happy to have a sleeping bag in my life – not because I had a problem sharing a bed with a friend, I’ve done that plenty, but because the bed itself was so disgusting that the only way that I could even go near it was to essentially wear a giant body condom. Oh, and the room had a distinctly funny smell. The bathroom was literally in the middle of a stairwell, and the shower…

…sorry, I had to go be nauseous again. You had to pay to use the shower, which we did on the first day, and when we got the key for the shower "room", we realized that we just wouldn’t be showering for our entire stint in Paris. This building was about 100 years old, and the shower had likely never been cleaned. So. three nights in Paris, no bathing. This is after an overnight trip from London, and a plan to take another overnight train to Amsterdam at the end. Which means that by the time I got to Holland, I hadn’t showered for almost a full week. A week which started with repeated vomiting off the side of a boat.

I saw lots of really great things in Paris (as was the case with all famous buildings everywhere I went, Notre Dame was of course covered in scaffolding), and I fully agree that it’s a beautiful city. But the hotel just overwhelmed things. Oh, and the fact that I was counting on my french-speaking friend to show me around? Well, the fact that she had no money, and had seen everything before, meant that she sat around our hotel room for three days (pointedly mentioning that she wouldn’t have even come to paris but for my wanting to) while I went out and did stuff. We lived on bread and cheese. But the kicker? was the last day, when we were leaving. We had saved the Musee D’Orsay for the last day, figuring that we could check our backpacks at the coatcheck and wander around for a few hours until our train. So we traipsed, in the rain, to the MD’O, to discover that the museum workers’ union had called a city-wide strike. So it was closed.

The second time I was in Paris, when I only had a day? I figured that I could check out the MD’O because I had already seen the Louvre and other stuff. So, I traipsed over there again (in much better weather), to discover that the darn place is closed on Mondays. Monday being the only day I was in Paris. I did have an excellent dinner in chinatown that night with a bunch of the bike tour guides who were also in town, but that whole thing was more like a layover than a trip.

So, I feel like I have to go for a few days just to redeem Paris for myself in my head. I’ve already checked the website, and the MD’O is open on both Sunday and Tuesday, even though it’s christmas, so I’m getting in come hell or high water. Seriously. that place has become my white whale. Ten years I’ve been trying to see those friggin’ paintings!

Seriously the best New York Times Graphic ever.

In a discussion of quantum physics, by way of explanation, they have a graphic explaining the concept of Schroedinger’s cat.

The graphic consists entirely of a cat inside an imaginary box (with an imaginary radioactive atom very complexly represented by a yellow dot). The best part is that there are two images. One with a living cat and one with…yes…a dead cat.

Happy birthday to me edition…

Thu Feb 10 2005:

• Google Maps is the most awesomest mapping program ever. and it’s still in beta! (2:28 pm)

Sun Feb 13 2005:

• It’s funny – Christo and Jeanne-Claude have said repeatedly that there’s no "hidden meaning" to the Gates. They’ve been quite adamant about it, actually, but this WP writer just can’t stop himself from trying. Jealous maybe, that C&JC’s life ambition was finally achieved in NYC rather than, say, the Washington Mall? (12:27 am)

This morning at 8, I made my way up to Central Park. Got off the bus at the CPZoo entrance, and they were still all wrapped up. Then ran into a few other determined people who were looking for the action to all start, and when we went over the ridge, there they were.

Teams running up parallel paths, trailed by large crowds of people, as the wrappings were pulled off and the fabric was set free. I wandered around taking pictures, finally exiting at the oh so appropriate Artists’ Gate. It was gorgeous.

More:

New York Times: Dressing the Park in Orange, and Pleats
Gothamist: The Gates are Open

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, photos referenced in this post now appear directly below.

Back in the days when I used to make attempts at creativity, I got into a fight with my photography professor in the middle of class one day. I had gone to a budget protest rally in Albany and taken a bunch of pictures of the protesters, and they were fantastic looking (if I do say so myself). So when it came time to present them in class, I was quite proud of my work. But this professor kept going, "yeah, they’re nice to look at, but what do they mean?" After a few rounds of this, I finally had enough and just blurted out, "why do they have to mean anything? why can’t they just be an interesting-looking documentation of an event? why can’t they just be great-looking pictures?" I’ll admit that I thought I actually lost the argument, not because my point wasn’t valid but, well, because I disagreed with the professor. But he must have taken what I said to heart, because I ended up with an A in the class (even though I certainly didn’t get an A on every assignment).

The reason why I post this story now? Because I was just watching the news, and they had an interview with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, where Jeanne-Claude had this gem:

Even though I’ve been totally swamped at work (it seems to be a recurring February phenomenon), this weekend is shaping up to be an awesome birthday for me. For one thing, it actually falls on a Sunday this year, making the likelihood of having to work until midnight (like last year) pretty slight. And the Gates are going to open this weekend, so that’s going to be on my itinerary. I’m weirdly excited about it, and I normally don’t get quite this giddy over public art projects. Maybe it’s because the scale of the project is crazy (23 miles!), or that Christo has spent 20 years trying to get the thing done (and is paying for the whole thing), or that it’s orange, but I’m almost giddy with anticipation.

And I certainly don’t want to jinx it, but I’m in an apartment-buying frenzy at the moment as well. I got home last night and spent two hours photocopying tax returns and rent statements for my mortgage broker. So that’s exciting…

Christo’s massive, 23-mile art installation is starting to get installed in time for it’s February 12 opening. The first work of Christo that I ever saw was when I was in Berlin in 1996 – while the long-defunct Reichstag was getting a new roof, he had wrapped the entire building in fabric rather than force Berliners to look at some ugly scaffolding. I always thought that, at least conceptually, that was a fabulous idea.

According to an article that appeared in the Times a few weeks ago that I can’t seem to find right now, Christo first developed this project more than two decades ago, and has been trying to get it installed ever since. Not only that, it’s not costing the city a dime – Christo and his wife have raised all the money for both the installation and related security themselves as a condition to getting permission to put up the fabric. And the city is thrilled, because this thing is apparently going to attract a whole lot of artsy tourists (hotels around the park have been filling up) during a period of the year when the city is ordinarily dead to tourists.

Public art is truly one of the wonderful benefits of living in this city.