Photolism

I don't even know what that means, but it sounded cool. In my head, I mean.

And here's my trip to NYC.

First, I think it's important to note that Jeff and Lorree live right around the corner from what may be the only drive-thru in Manhattan.

I took this from the subway platform.

Second, I think it's important to note that I finished Yorick for Jeff as hoped. And I know how y'all like FOs.

The only thing I've done every time I go to Manhattan (other than stay with Jeff and Lorree) is visit the American Museum of Natural History.

That's the rail on the fence surrounding the Eleanor Roosevelt Garden@ on the northwest corner of the museum grounds.

The Rose Center and the Hayden Planetarium are always worth a peek, and I buy an unlimited ticket to get me into every special exhibit they have going.

This trip's special exhibits were butterflies and mythical creatures.

The former:

The latter was basically a bunch of papier-mache critters with narrative explanations on their mythology and, y'know... how manatees looked like mermaids to weary sailors. The only picture I got was of a dragon wing, which was artsy, but not illustrative.%

The biosphere on the bottom floor with all the tiny fish.

The dinosaur in the Roosevelt Rotunda you may have seen in "Night at the Museum" or the TiVi show "Mad About You."^

And "truly large mouse," just because I think it's funny.

[SUMMARY: Go, museum geek, go!]

Friday, MoMA was ridiculously crowded, and for the first time I got genuinely pissed off at the pretentiousness of a piece of "artwork."†

I don't like to guppy up to the "my four-year-old could do that" stereotype of the artistic Luddite, but I finally found the thing hanging on a wall that did it: a piece of newsprint -- not very big‡ -- folded in half, in half and in half again, then unfolded and framed.

The accompanying blather said (paraphrasing) "The artist folds the blank paper many times, transcending tradition to create a drawing without ever putting pencil to paper."

No, the fuck he doesn't.

He folded a page in eighths like they used to make us do in the second grade to create a big-pencil-friendly version of ruled paper for us to do sums on.

It's not a drawing.

It's not even art.

[SUMMARY: My four-year-old could do that.]

The art I liked was the art I always like. Every time I looked at a painting I liked, it would be Klimt or Rothko or Dali or Ernst.§

Perhaps I stagnate.

I also love the furniture section. I don't know why an Eames chair should turn me on so, but it really does.

Although I don't like alien furniture... you know, the stuff that was conceived on the artistic construct of "how would a space creature with seven legs whose spine was rigid, but whose knees bent backwards sit?"¶

[SUMMARY: I don't know art, but I know what I don't like.]

Friday also brought weather I've never experienced before: 100% humidity with reasonably comfortable temperatures. Sleeping was weird and surreal, with fever dreams and kicking the covers on and off and getting up ten or seventeen times to pee and get water. I've never felt anything like it.

[SUMMARY: Not unlike my Amber experience.]

Saturday was, of course, the trek to Rhinebeck.

There were many people.

And fairground-appropriate accoutrement.#

And pretty trees.

This being my favourite.

And a bouncy pirate ship with (wait for it...)

...a skull and crossbones or five.

Sheep.

Goats.

Bunnies.

Outdoor yarn.

Indoor yarn.

Mohair locks by the bushel.

Quiet spaces to go to escape the madding crowd, if just for a few minutes.

And this is very important. A vendor I loved, with lovely Merino and Merino/Silk and CORMO and I somehow *forgot the name of the frickin' vendor.* If anyone knows who this is (maybe from the top floor of the big white barn?), could you please drop me a comment?

I didn't dislike everything about Rhinebeck. I loved the unknown yarn vendor and Spirit Trail Fibreworks. And Green Mountain Spinnery, from whom I got 500 yards of this:

And, as always, Brooks Farm, from whom I got 500 yards of this:

And the horses. I may be the only fibre geek in North America to get this guy from the front.

[SUMMARY: Deja vu?]

These are my peeps from the delayed train adventure.

Sunday, Lorree needed some Lorree time, so I asked Jeff if we could explore Central Park, as I've seen woefully little of it and feel it is necessary to my quintessential experience of New York.

Jeff said, "You're taking a picture of a sign?"

I said, "Yes. Some people might appreciate that there are eleventy hundred baseball diamonds here in the North Meadow."




People who have only seen snippets of the park on TiVi and such may not be aware of its full impact. It's HUGE.

You can hike through a forest reminiscent of Redwood National Park, fording streams and climbing rocks and hills... then come around a corner to the Great Lawn where upwards of 3000 people and their dogs are playing Frisbee and sunbathing.

There is the Pond (smaller than Harlem Meers, but large enough to row on).

There are turtles.

There is a castle.††

Oh, look. There is Jeff 180 degrees from the last photo on the courtyard of Belvedere Castle.

There is a highly artistic shot of the shadow of Belvedere Castle looking up to the south leg of the Great Lawn.‡‡

After rambling around Belvedere Castle, we cut across the park westward§§ to catch Riverside Park home. Jeff lives right by Riverside Park, though a ways north of where we were at the castle.

A barge.¶¶

Looking up Riverside Park.

[SUMMARY: New York!]

Tomorrow: WIP, another FO and Annie Modesitt tells me I was knitting OK all along.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): Maybe. I know she had a garden around here somewhere.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Not that artsy isn't a fine reason all on its own to post a picture. Apparently I was the victim of a rare and impulsive moment of discretion. Enjoy it while you can.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Where young Paul and young Jamie are on class field trips to AMNH and the power goes out.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): It's too trite to sniff at art, but I actually had a visceral reaction to the bullshit they were dishing. Spittle. Hair on end. Ears hot.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Well, size doesn't count, but I don't want you to think it's maybe six stories tall and could fall into some Christo realm of scale as art.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I'm nothing if not prosaic.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): When Melissa Etheridge came out, a male friend was trying to articulate why it was so upsetting to him. In my usual succinct way (shut up), I said, "Because you want to believe she's singing the love songs to you." I want to believe the chair in the museum could possibly end up in my living room (maybe as part of the McDonald's Monopoly frenzy of prizes) and I'm not a seven-legged alien.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): With a festive fall theme!

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Belvedere Castle, to be specific.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I think.

§§FOOTNOTE (a snake eats its tail): Right by the Dakota, where people take pictures of the sidewalk like they might be able to catch bloodstains from nearly 30 years ago.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (I think we just ran out of paragraphs): Maybe.