Look with your eyes, not with your hands.


Such a minute fraction of this life do we live: so much is sleep, tooth-brushing, waiting for mail, for metamorphosis, for those sudden moments of incandescence: unexpected, but once one knows them, one can live life in the light of their past and the hope of their future.



A grad student muses on her life, film, friends, politics, reality televizzle, and music.

 
Oh Say Can You See...

Back in a whirl after another two perfect days in the city of cities. New thought on my on-going relationship with the beautiful beast New York: being a tourist ain't so bad. When I was in New York in past summers, my "want to do" list was neglected and I often tended to do the same things all the time, want to make plans with people without ever really following up, and I took the whole situation for granted. Now that my moments there are few, I think I capitalize on my time in a remarkably productive way. Without further ado... My midweek weekend in the Big Apple.

Headed into town on Wednesday, arriving early and letting myself into Nathan's pristine 27th floor slice of the Chelsea Tower. It is crazy nice. It is $4,000/mo, brand new appliances, marble counter, parkay floor, and room-with-a-view crazy nice. He and his roommates are still very much getting settled, but they have a nice clean slate to work with. Onto Midtown for quick shopping, a quick hair chop at Jean Louis, and then back for showers, primping, sushi and ironing. We tore up the Whitney opening, both looking tan and schmoozing our well-heeled selves around the Sarah Tze courtyard on Whitney wine. The opening was for the new exhibition entitled, American Effect, a show of non-American artists reflecting on America. I liked the idea of the show and found the pieces I could get close enough to enjoy, despite the crowds, interesting and ranged in tone from biting to tongue and cheek. I spotted Max Anderson, the Director of the museum, and found him to be much shorter than expected. His wife is a gorgeous actress that looked like a hooker in a fringy purple Prada number. Even better than that sighting was of course sharing an elevator with the painter Chuck Close. Many free drinks and introduction to some of Nathan's new cohorts later, we were cabbing it up to a dark and sultry Moroccan bar on the Upper Westside. A drink later we were walking back through Time Square, belligerent, and then fussing with a futon like two stooges.

The next day, a work day for most of the suckers I am friends with, left me a little time and space for doing the things I like to do, including sleeping late and hauling my rested self to Queens for MoMA and PS1. It must have been close to a year since I went to MoMA and I really enjoyed this trip. They have a Max Beckmann retrospective that was really fascinating. Not only was there a great showing of his work (which I am embarrassed to admit how little I really knew about him and his work) but they have really great text that gave the exhibition some weight. His many self-portraits left the strongest impression on me, some near haunting, but fascinating to see an artist so committed to defining himself. The new space also allows for a good showing of the Museum's permanent collection, highlighting a lot more than the old 2nd floor galleries did at 11 W53rd St. They have a little alcove where Mary Lea Bandy put up about thirty of Warhol's "screen tests." He'd have a subject sit in front of a still camera for a reel of film, instructing them to sit still, creating a hybrid form cinematic portrait. I had heard about them, but never saw them. Worth seeing if you are into this sort of thing, Dennis Hopper's is absolutely amazing, he has such a presence.

A coffee and some postcards later, I was back on the 7 train going to another post in Queens, MoMA's little sister, PS1. This museum also rarely disappoints. I sort of breezed through the room exploring the intersection of modern sciences (namely phyiscs) and art, but lingered on at a show curated by Agnes Gund called "Sight and Insight." The connection between the works, supposedly artists who really embrace a subjective view of the world or use materials "subjectively," was tenuous, but I really liked the room devoted to Jim Hodges and the video works by Peter Campus. Upstairs they have a retrospective of Chen Zhen that brings together a lot of interesting influences between China and the West as well as mixing his influences as a Chinese phyiscian with artistic sense. To make the day even better, I bumped into my former intern coordinator from the Gugg and we caught up and I planted the seeds for the possibility of going back to the Gugg one summer for pay.

From there just a hop, skip, and a jump from one favorite place to another, the famed and revered Rodeo Bar. The most sickenly alcoholic margarita this side of the Rio Grande, peanuts to boot and just a solid and great visit with Andrea, John, and Lauren. While I was there part of me was toting my suburban-loving lifestyle line, but it is hard to face what I am giving up in favor of uncharted teritory. After a few more drinks and some more peanuts, we said goodbyes to Andrea and headed uptown to finish my tour of visiting great people and favorite places in New York. My friend Nate had access to his father's drop dead gorgeous apartment and had us up for what began as a refined night of drinks, classical music (the coffee cantata), and a view more priceless than any I've ever seen framed by steel and glass. The group swelled a little when Ted made an appearance and brought along a high school pal, Dan, fresh from LA and film school. Most importantly, he's recently returned from Prague and thus carried back the golden black-market item of the day for a bunch of lazy post-grads, dare I say it, Absinthe.

From there it's pure youth and New York and 4th of July poetry. On the roof of this amazing building on the Upper Eastside, drunk from licorice-tasting absinthe and gin, and setting off Roman Candles and other assorted fireworks (a collection Ted bought in South Carolina three years ago) and just enjoying a 360-degree view of an occasional star, traffic along 2nd Avenue, and rooftops and talking about auteur theory and whether Matthew Barney's handsome masculinity has artistic value. It's the closest I've been to the top of the world in a while. Climbing up to the highest point on a shaky painter's ladder and tiptoeing across skylights looking down into the ceiling swimming pool. Ah, just yesterday I was going on and on about how great it was to have ordinary routines and be suburban and predictable, but this was an extra-ordinary evening and the trip in general revived a part of myself that gets subsumed, forgotten. 3am goodbyes, whizzing downtown in a cab, and calling it a very late night.

Saw everyone I wanted to, did everything on my list, and enjoyed it all. I still think I am crazy for turning all of this down. But I really need to remind myself that a perfect two-day sojourn is a very different animal for surviving that city and being a student. When things are good, they really are good, and they might exclusively be good in these bitesize snippets that give you all of the good and none of the bad. I have a feeling that this little trip might keep me similing, amazed, for my last month at home.

posted by lmjasinski at 3:53 PM