i'm outtie

The day after tomorrow I'm leaving New York for Paris. No, not for good. It's a vacation, to visit friends. I plan to drink too much wine, eat too much cheese, and smoke too many French cigarettes. It will be lovely, even if the weather forecast - which currently calls for mostly cloudy skies and rain for a day or so - holds true. When I asked my friend Ann what clothes to wear, she said my standard uniform of jeans and t-shirts would do, but also to bring a scarf. A scarf? That sounds like Euro-affectation to me, but it could be practical. I'll let you know.

like walking through a warhol photograph

This past weekend my parents were in town and I took my mom to MOMA. She had never been, and loved the fact that I could get in free with my company's corporate membership. 

There's so much great stuff there right now ... the color exhibit is fun, and I always love seeing Dan Flavin pieces. The highlight, though, wasn't Flavin, though it was clearly Flavin-inspired. Scandinavian artist Olafur Eliasson's Take Your Time features site-specific light installations, much like Flavin. The picture to the left was taken in a hallway, which, with the help of overhead orange light, transforms the space and creates the effect of walking through an overexposed photograph. Another highlight was a piece I called "The Fortress of Solitude", a circular wall of shifting color fields. 

I love light installations, it makes the spectator a participator in the piece, and also powerfully transforms space. It's like wading through celluloid.

For more information on the Eliasson exhibit, visit the MOMA.

in the future, all graffiti will look like this

Gothamist, the go-to for all local New York news, quirky and otherwise, found this image of graffiti on 9th st. between 2nd and 3rd. That's my 'hood, man!

It looks like the melding of two worlds, one animated, one otherwise, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or, if you're sinister, Videodrome.

Apparently, it's been tagged since installation, but you can bet I'm going to be checking it out on my way home from work. For the full coverage, visit Gothamist.

tuesday top five ...

... returns in all its glory.

I'll try to keep it up from now on. Today, when set on shuffle, my iPod gives you:

1. 2 Dots on a Map, The Russian Futurists from Our Thickness

2. Unlit Highway, Sun Kil Moon from the new album April

3. Something, the Beatles from Abbey Road

4. I Live For That Look, Dinosaur Jr. from Green Mind

5. Honest James, Thurston Moore from Trees Outside the Academy (this one totally gets me)

it gets great light, but what about the machetes?

I have been knee-deep in an apartment search for the past few weeks. There is nothing like the New York rental search, in fact I think it's worthy of a Christopher Guest-esque skewering, or a series of short stories or essays, best in the tone of David Sedaris or Lorrie Moore. It is, frankly, a nightmare.

I saw a lot along the way, including a loft in an old textile factory in Williamsburg that is (still!) zoned commercial, a bedroom even smaller than my current dwelling on the LES and a carriage house off the Bedford stop with roommates who did not speak to each other (or in English). I've ended up through the looking glass in a dream townhouse in Park Slope with a good friend, so I'm more than happy. I'm also armed with stories to tell.

I looked at a number of places in South Williamsburg, on the other side of the bridge from the trendy part, off the Hewes and Marcy stops on the JMZ. It's up-and-coming, I think, on account of all the young people moving in and looking for roommates. I was struck, both of the times I visited the area over the past week, on the notable police presence. I thought it odd, but then, I live in the played out East Village where the only emergencies on the corner are NYU girls who break a nail or have trouble lighting their Parliaments.

It turns out something serious was afoot. I was lucky, it seems, that I wasn't slashed by machete-wielding gang members. I mean, to get slashed or held at knife point is one thing, but a machete?

Read the full story on Gothamist.

skull and bone sunglasses

I watched the 80s dark comedy classic Something Wild for the first time last night. There's a moment when Melanie Griffith (before the plastic surgery and Antonio Banderas) robs a liquor store wearing the most devastatingly cool pair of black sunglasses, which have plastic skeletons glued to the rim of the lenses. Not only did I want them immediately, I wanted to be transported back to a time when an accessory like that would actually be pushing it. Now, you'd see them worn by Iggy Pop in a John Varvatos ad or in the window of his new store in the old CBGB space.

Like Desperately Seeking Susan (it's cinematic soulmate), the movie is old New York ... you know, the one before Pinkberry moved onto St. Mark's Place. Griffith plays a boho wild child who takes Jeff Daniels' Wall Street starch shirt for a mad cap ride that quickly turns felonious. It's surprisingly dark, complex and endearingly oddball. In short, it's a rare studio film that could never be made today. Strike that, they would probably consider a re-make, but only if Heidi and Spencer would headline.

Sometimes Gawker is too much for me. Reading it can often be described as drowning in snark. But ever so often there's a funny, spot on post, like the one below. It's New York-centric, and ever-so-true (not the hot girls thing, but the Beatrice Inn totally developing an eating disorder).

"An online poll declares that Rose Bar, at the Gramercy Park Hotel, has the most attractive female clientele of any bar in New York City. The runner-up bar, Beatrice Inn, immediately burst into tears and became anorexic."