living in her uptown world, oo-err-ah-err-oo

So on Friday I headed back up town, to visit the Guggenheim Museum. Another fun place to visit because it is fun to say.

Guggenheim, Guggenheim, Guggenheim.
Guggenheim, Minster.

Malkovich, Malkovich.

Unfortunately the exterior is still swathed in scaffolding as they are trying to restore the original surface, so I didn't get to appreciate Frank Lloyd Wright's work in all its splendour, but the inside is way cool. The main show that they have on the moment is Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso, which is an excellent topic for an exhibition, encompassing as it does El Greco, Velazquez, Dali, Miro, Gris, Goya, Picasso and so on. The works were arranged thematically rather than chronologically, as they were trying to bring out similarities in Spanish art from across the centuries, which worked well, highlighting particularly the Spanish artists' love of black and of the grotesque. The downside to this exhibition, taking up the spiral and the level six annexe, was that I didn't get to see much of the permanent collection. There was also a Fontana exhibition, and very cool, and part of the museum's collection of Kandinsky. But as a gallery I'm not a huge of fan of the spiral, although it would be excellent if you had both a sense of balance and those shoes with wheels, the constant slant downwards doesn't encourage lingering, or gaping-mouthed staring.

After that I had some cawfee, spent some time in Central Park (lovely! many undulating hills, and the last remnants of the autumn leaves are clinging on bravely) and then had a wander around a few of the commercial galleries - a v. good Jasper exhibition. Very intimidating galleries, around Madison avenue, lots of shiny surfaces. One was mostly made from marble, which my shoes, exhibiting the proletarian streak they sometimes share to protest such decadance, decided to squeak as though I had in fact strapped unhappy ducks to my feet. I didn't hang around too long there.

Evening was drawing in by then, which it does with startling haste in these parts, at this time of year, and at a loss for what to do, wandered. Shopping uptown makes you realise why people marry for money. I wandered until I was in Time Square again, and ended up with a ticket to High Fidelity, the musical. Which is weird, because I'm not a huge fan of the musical, to the extent that I can't remember the last one I saw in Australia (Phantom of the Opera maybe? About ten years ago? That would explain why I haven't been in so long possibly...) but now I've seen three in three months. Also weird, because, that's right, they've made a musical out of High Fidelity. Being a big fan of both the book and the film (it's the dvd I always hire when I'm lost in the shop amidst endless hollywood pap - I should probably have just bought it about three hires ago) it seemed only appropriate that I go see the musical. It has only just opened, a fact which I think shows, if it ever does come to Australia (ie if it survives this season) I hope it gets a damn good edit and a casting agent who has read the book, not just seen the film. The lead at the moment really isn't Rob, or even John Cusack, and the guy playing the Jack Black character that I can't remember the name of, seems to be playing Jack-Black-playing-the-character-I-can't-remember-the-name-of, but not as well. Laura also not quite right. Ian, Liz and Dick v. good. The entire first act seems to be dedicated to setting the scene, and goes on way too long with songs that need to be about 1/3 as long. Certainly no Rogers and Hammerstein. About halfway through the first act I realised what was bothering me about it - the incongruity about turning a story about characters who would heap scorn on broadway musicals into a broadway musical. Were they to be in NYC on a Friday night, it would seem unlikely that they would be sitting where I was, they would be in a club listening to a band that was little known but very cool. The central plot device of the novel and film - of looking up his exes and going a on a personal discovery tour, was covered in one song, a duet with a faux Bruce Springsteen. Nuff said really.

Barry! That's that character's name.

The weather until this time had been freakishly good, I'd just been wearing a hoody all week - with trousers and so forth, obviously - and had been perfectly toasty - but with the advent of December someone has flicked a large switch somewhere and we have arrived in Jacket weather overnight.

Yesterday was very cold, but beautifully blue and clear which was nice, although with a wind that could slap you around. I drank a bucket of coffee over the Village Voice to start my day. On coffee: the supply was so erratic in the UK that I'd actually cut way back, could start my day without the coffee-absence-salsa in my frontal lobes until like, 2 in the afternoon, very strange - but as soon as I arrived in the US of A the coffee supply lines have been resumed and I'm back in my usual morning focus on Get-me-to-the-coffee-and-then-we'll-figure-out-what-my-name-is-where-I-am-and-what-I'm-supposed-to-be-doing-today thing. I haven't had espresso though, which is very bizarre, because the filter coffee is actually good here, and excellently, served in buckets, so you can read a whole newspaper or the entire internet in the time it takes to get through the coffee. Which is also why this blog is now up to date. And how I've figured out the origins of Irish dance. [i.e. if you sit for an hour or so over bucket of coffee and then stand up, you have about 2 minutes to find a 'restroom' to have a 'rest', if you also have to shut down a mac in this time, you will have a new experience of how time can actually physically slow down, and find yourself needing to dance from foot to foot while trying not to move.... ]

In other matters pertaining to food: all that super size me stuff convinces you that food in America is perpetually awful, which, for Washington and New York at least, is definitely not true. New York especially, because you can get pretty much anything at pretty much any time of day or night (and that's just in the East Village...). I can see why you could end up the size of a small semi-detached though: they do junk food incredibly well. Not as in trashy crap food, but taking good ingredients and transforming them into something wildly unhealthy, and then giving you a lot of it, for a fairly respectable price. Except for root beer. Which is the only soft drink I've every consumed and thought "I wonder if there was a meeting about this product when they had to decide if they were going to sell it as a beverage or a bathroom cleaner." And frankly, they made the wrong choice. But, my goodness, the bagels: surely they prove that the Jewish people do indeed have a special relationship with the Lord. Mightly refreshing to be in a country that if you order a bagel you get a properly boiled bagel, not just any old leavened item with a whole in the centre. In Canberra recently I went to a cafe called 'Bagels' and got a bread roll with a whole in it: I find that unacceptable in a milk bar in say, Dubbo, but in a cafe CALLED 'Bagels'?! Also, they have little containers of cream cheese, in an array of varieties. V. good.

Then I wondered downtown [when you're feeling low, downtown!], and found that shopping downtown creates that feeling you get when all you've consumed all day is starburst and black coffee {which if you haven't done you should, you won't really enjoy it but everything will be very entertaining and requiring your attention simultaneously]: far too many places to look and interesting things to touch. This is one reason why it would be very dangerous for me to live in NYC: going for a simple walk can involve several shoe shops. On an aside, I seem to be thwarted when it comes to boots this week: not the boots made from ponies, nor the rainboots with the kitten heel, nor even the gold faux-snakeskin, which have all been on sale, have they had in my size. Which some of you will no doubt think is a mighty good thing. But others will know the pain of being shoe-thwarted and will join me now in a sigh: *sigh*. Thanks. Then I found myself in a large department store of brand discounts! happiness! Unfortunately a happiness I had to share with most of New York and a good percentage of the mid-west. On your receipt it tells you how much you spent, but also how much you saved: so sure I spent 50, but I saved 110, so that means I made money! Clever huh?

This was, incongruously, across the road from Ground Zero, which was a deeply surreal place to visit. Having now spent a little time in New York, doing my usual things of gibbering at art and drinking coffee and pawing footwear, and developing a hope that I'll spend a lot more time in the future doing those things here, it seems even less comprehensible that something so reprehensibly horrendous as 9/11 could have happened in what for me is a happy place. Also, that morning the main story in the Village Voice was about the growing number of unusual cancers (for healthy working age men) that have been developing in the workers that cleared the site in the months after 9/11. Thousands already have serious respiratory illnesses, but several hundred now also have cancer. There is already a mass lawsuit about his, because, unbelievably, a week after 9/11 the EPA said that it was categorically okay to drink the water and breathe the air in downtown Manhattan. Despite that the testing hadn't been completed. Later, it came out that the White House had a lot to do with this, taking the red pen to more cautious statements and inserting more positive remarks about the air quality - which subsequent tests showed to be ridiculously high in things that will kill you. Because they were concerned about getting Wall Street up and running. The article drew on several stories of individuals effected by this, one of whom recounted how he was working both at Ground Zero and out at the site where they sifted through all the rubble - mostly the contents and structure of the buildings that had been powdered - with all the protection of a face mask. One day when they were taking a break, in came in the FBI, in full hazchem suits, with any possible opening taped up. There were something like 40000 people involved in the operation, let alone all the people in downtown New York on that day and in the subsequent months.

With this all in my mind it made the experience of visiting the site hard to process - it looks like any other huge construction site that hasn't gotten much past the hole-in-the-ground stage, but with a fenced-off viewing area, and a huge photo display of what the finished buildings are projected to look like, what the WTC looked like, and lots of images taken on 9/11 and subsequently. Including a really poignant one of part of a squashed Calder sculpture - I've seen so many of them recently and they hang with that grace that Calder infused into metal, for me that photo sums up so much of what was lost on that day to see something that was just about beauty squashed and wrecked. There are a lot of people there looking around, and a lot of people visibly moved by the experience of being there. I was glad that I had gone on a weekend, when most of the workers in the Wall Street area are not likely to be there, I can't quite imagine how you would deal with seeing all those people checking it out everyday. And I really don't understand the people who take photos of each other standing in front of the site?

I continued my path south, although actually I veered west, because I had turned a corner and forgotten, and walked on down to the Hudson, thinking to myself, "I wonder where the Statue of Liberty actually i-" as I rounded a corner "... ah, there". So took many photos of the distant statue in the sunset, and kept walking along, and came to the Staten Island ferry and caught it and then caught it back and now I have lots of photos of blurry statue of liberty in the sunset and blurry NYC at night. Taking photos at night from a moving ferry is strangely challenging.