![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
New York and Philadelphia Trip
I took a brief trip out of town last week. I took the train up to New York on Monday afternoon. I’d been a bit concerned about the aftermath of their snow storm, but the streets and sidewalks had been mostly cleared. I stayed at the Fairfield Inn on 33rd Street, right across from Moynihan Train Hall, which was convenient and fairly good as hotels in that class go. They even had a hot breakfast buffet. However, they had the tables within the breakfast room closed off, which led to a lot of people gathering around one large table and several clusters of armchairs / coffee tables in the lobby, which seems to me to be less socially distanced than the breakfast room would have been.
Anyway, a lot of things are closed on Tuesdays. Looking at the options, I decided to check out the National Museum of Mathematics. This would be an excellent place to go if I were about 8 years old. But it is definitely geared to elementary school age children and I think I saw only one other adult who was not accompanied by a young child. There are a lot of interactive exhibits - but not a lot of actual explanation of the mathematics behind them. Also, a lot of exhibits were not working. Overall, I didn’t think it was worth the $25 admission. The museum shop does have a lot of interesting math-related toys, however.
Tuesday afternoon, I went down to Tribeca to see a gallery exhibit at Sapar Contemporary. The work, by an Indonesian artist named Mulyana, is called Fragile Ecosystems and consists of knitted coral and felted fish and the like. Having worked on the Smithsonian crochet coral reef (back in 2011) this was obviously right up my alley. It doesn’t take long to see, but was worth the stop.
It was a short walk from there to The Mysterious Bookshop, which was one of the (if not THE) first mystery bookstores in the U.S. and is always a delightful place to browse. I could easily spend quite a lot of money there, but I have way too many books to begin with, so limited myself to buying three thin volumes in their Bibolomysteries series of novellas and a few postcards of pulp covers.
I had a quick dinner, then meandered down to Battery Park to the Museum of Jewish Heritage to see Ricky Ian Gordon’s opera of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which was a coproduction of the New York City Opera and the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Ricky is from my home town, which was another reason for wanting to see this. I had seen the movie long enough ago that I remembered pretty much nothing about it, beyond it having to do with an Italian family during World War II. There are really two plot lines. One has to do with a love story - young Giorgio’s love for Micol Finzi-Contini, who pretty much thinks he is beneath her. There’s a second (gay) love story that is less developed. The other story, which was more successful for me, had to do with the rising anti-Semitism in Italy and I found that more satisfying musically. In particular, I found the scene in the second act of a Passover seder at Giorgio’s home which becomes confrontational about the future of Italian Jewry to be a dramatic highlight. I should also note the performance of Anthony Ciaramitaro as Giorgio, who has returned to Ferrara in his 40’s and is looking back at the events of his youth. Overall, it was worth seeing.
On Wednesday, I went to the Brooklyn Museum, primarily to see two exhibits. I started with the Andy Warhol exhibit, which was, frankly, weird. When I think of Warhol, I think mostly of things like Campbell’s soup cans and screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and so on. Instead, this exhibit emphasized the influence of the Byzantine Catholic Church on him.
They did point out the conflict between his religion and his sexuality, which didn’t stop them from showing a lot of semi-pornographic film, partly in the context of his shooting by Valerie Solanas. But, even there, they played up how much he went to church after recovering from the shooting. Overall, a very strange take on a well-known artist.
The other exhibit I went there for was about Dior, and that was more satisfying. There was plenty of footage of runway shows, which I could watch for ages. And there were luscious dresses. Of course, many of the accessories are especially beyond the reach of the average person. I don’t know where I could get a couple of elephants to set off any of my little black dresses, for example.
Some other parts of the exhibit felt a bit too much like advertising. That was especially true of the videos of perfume ads. I’d also have liked more material about the place of high-end fashion in our culture. But, overall, I enjoyed the exhibit.
While I was at the museum, I did also go through some of their permanent collection. (Well, okay, I ignored the Egyptian stuff. My mother was an archaeology major in college and, as a result, I was overexposed as a child, leading to a lifelong aversion to ancient Egypt.) The strongest part of their collection is contemporary feminist art. In particular, they host The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.
In the evening, I went to see an extremely silly show called Space Dogs. This was written and performed by Van Hughes and Nick Blaemire. Blaemire is somewhat notorious in the D.C. area for having written music and lyrics for Glory Days, which was successful at Signature Theatre but closed after one performance on Broadway. Anyway, this show had to do with the Soviet use of dogs to prove humans could survive space and focused on the relationship between “the Chief Designer” and the dog, Laika, who was sent to space, but without a plan to return her to earth. There was some catchy music and clever use of video and puppets, but the show was far longer than it needed to be. And some of the historical inaccuracies drove me nuts, though I am sure nobody else in the audience noticed how badly they mangled info about the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Oh, well, it was a lot cheaper than a Broadway show would have been. But you’d be better off going to Los Angeles and checking out the exhibit about Dogs of the Soviet Space Program at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
The other purpose of my trip was to see the Philadelphia half of the Jasper Johns retrospective and I did that on Thursday. (I had seen the New York part at the Whitney in November). This was definitely worth seeing. Seeing so many of his works in one place made me appreciate Johns more. I think what is particularly striking about his work is that he kept all of his studies (and signed them). But, mostly, I like how he played with his ideas, repeating the same themes over and over.
Another good example is here , in “5 Postcards.”
I did go an revisit other works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, too. There is plenty of American art, including Shaker furniture, for example. They have plenty of works by Monet, Van Gogh, and so on. But my absolute favorite piece there is Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” largely for the epiphany I had about it many years ago. Namely, that the key word in the title is “descending” and that it is really about the motion. This revolutionized how I look at modern art.
All in all, I had a good trip. I got back on Friday afternoon in time to make this cocktail of the week - a nutty African, which consists of brewed coffee, amarula (a South African liqueur made from the marula fruit), rum, and whipped cream, decorated with chopped pecans. It was delicious.
Anyway, a lot of things are closed on Tuesdays. Looking at the options, I decided to check out the National Museum of Mathematics. This would be an excellent place to go if I were about 8 years old. But it is definitely geared to elementary school age children and I think I saw only one other adult who was not accompanied by a young child. There are a lot of interactive exhibits - but not a lot of actual explanation of the mathematics behind them. Also, a lot of exhibits were not working. Overall, I didn’t think it was worth the $25 admission. The museum shop does have a lot of interesting math-related toys, however.
Tuesday afternoon, I went down to Tribeca to see a gallery exhibit at Sapar Contemporary. The work, by an Indonesian artist named Mulyana, is called Fragile Ecosystems and consists of knitted coral and felted fish and the like. Having worked on the Smithsonian crochet coral reef (back in 2011) this was obviously right up my alley. It doesn’t take long to see, but was worth the stop.
It was a short walk from there to The Mysterious Bookshop, which was one of the (if not THE) first mystery bookstores in the U.S. and is always a delightful place to browse. I could easily spend quite a lot of money there, but I have way too many books to begin with, so limited myself to buying three thin volumes in their Bibolomysteries series of novellas and a few postcards of pulp covers.
I had a quick dinner, then meandered down to Battery Park to the Museum of Jewish Heritage to see Ricky Ian Gordon’s opera of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, which was a coproduction of the New York City Opera and the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Ricky is from my home town, which was another reason for wanting to see this. I had seen the movie long enough ago that I remembered pretty much nothing about it, beyond it having to do with an Italian family during World War II. There are really two plot lines. One has to do with a love story - young Giorgio’s love for Micol Finzi-Contini, who pretty much thinks he is beneath her. There’s a second (gay) love story that is less developed. The other story, which was more successful for me, had to do with the rising anti-Semitism in Italy and I found that more satisfying musically. In particular, I found the scene in the second act of a Passover seder at Giorgio’s home which becomes confrontational about the future of Italian Jewry to be a dramatic highlight. I should also note the performance of Anthony Ciaramitaro as Giorgio, who has returned to Ferrara in his 40’s and is looking back at the events of his youth. Overall, it was worth seeing.
On Wednesday, I went to the Brooklyn Museum, primarily to see two exhibits. I started with the Andy Warhol exhibit, which was, frankly, weird. When I think of Warhol, I think mostly of things like Campbell’s soup cans and screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and so on. Instead, this exhibit emphasized the influence of the Byzantine Catholic Church on him.
They did point out the conflict between his religion and his sexuality, which didn’t stop them from showing a lot of semi-pornographic film, partly in the context of his shooting by Valerie Solanas. But, even there, they played up how much he went to church after recovering from the shooting. Overall, a very strange take on a well-known artist.
The other exhibit I went there for was about Dior, and that was more satisfying. There was plenty of footage of runway shows, which I could watch for ages. And there were luscious dresses. Of course, many of the accessories are especially beyond the reach of the average person. I don’t know where I could get a couple of elephants to set off any of my little black dresses, for example.
Some other parts of the exhibit felt a bit too much like advertising. That was especially true of the videos of perfume ads. I’d also have liked more material about the place of high-end fashion in our culture. But, overall, I enjoyed the exhibit.
While I was at the museum, I did also go through some of their permanent collection. (Well, okay, I ignored the Egyptian stuff. My mother was an archaeology major in college and, as a result, I was overexposed as a child, leading to a lifelong aversion to ancient Egypt.) The strongest part of their collection is contemporary feminist art. In particular, they host The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago.
In the evening, I went to see an extremely silly show called Space Dogs. This was written and performed by Van Hughes and Nick Blaemire. Blaemire is somewhat notorious in the D.C. area for having written music and lyrics for Glory Days, which was successful at Signature Theatre but closed after one performance on Broadway. Anyway, this show had to do with the Soviet use of dogs to prove humans could survive space and focused on the relationship between “the Chief Designer” and the dog, Laika, who was sent to space, but without a plan to return her to earth. There was some catchy music and clever use of video and puppets, but the show was far longer than it needed to be. And some of the historical inaccuracies drove me nuts, though I am sure nobody else in the audience noticed how badly they mangled info about the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Oh, well, it was a lot cheaper than a Broadway show would have been. But you’d be better off going to Los Angeles and checking out the exhibit about Dogs of the Soviet Space Program at the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
The other purpose of my trip was to see the Philadelphia half of the Jasper Johns retrospective and I did that on Thursday. (I had seen the New York part at the Whitney in November). This was definitely worth seeing. Seeing so many of his works in one place made me appreciate Johns more. I think what is particularly striking about his work is that he kept all of his studies (and signed them). But, mostly, I like how he played with his ideas, repeating the same themes over and over.
Another good example is here , in “5 Postcards.”
I did go an revisit other works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, too. There is plenty of American art, including Shaker furniture, for example. They have plenty of works by Monet, Van Gogh, and so on. But my absolute favorite piece there is Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” largely for the epiphany I had about it many years ago. Namely, that the key word in the title is “descending” and that it is really about the motion. This revolutionized how I look at modern art.
All in all, I had a good trip. I got back on Friday afternoon in time to make this cocktail of the week - a nutty African, which consists of brewed coffee, amarula (a South African liqueur made from the marula fruit), rum, and whipped cream, decorated with chopped pecans. It was delicious.