New York, New York, issa wonderful town.

Hey look, the counter is past the 1000 mark! [thanks Mum...]

The Museum of Modern Art: eeeh hee hee hee! Eee! Hee! Hee! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Just to give you an insight into my internal murmurings of excitement as I approached MoMA. Resisting the urge to dance with excitement, as MoMA is home to one of the best collections of Modern art ever – if you put all of the works in Australia by those artists into the one space I think you’d end up with a collection about five percent as good as the fourth floor – lots of works that I would see out of the corner of my eye and turn around and almost say hello! Because I feel like we’re old friends. The constant presence of many security guards fortuitously served as a reminder that I shouldn’t hug any of them. The works I mean, not the guards.

Mondrian, Matisse, Miro, Picasso, Cezanne, Pollock, Rothko.... These are a few of my favourite things. The new building is beautiful [not that I ever saw the old one], the design is a great frame for the works and has a great sense of space, you constantly get glimpses of where you’re about to go or where you’ve just been. Although the central atrium up the centre is a little scary, now that I have my new fear of heights. [Other people get tattoos and shoes when they travel; I get phobias. Excellent.] There’s also a lot of natural light, and views out over the surrounding streets and the sculpture garden. And a really expensive café that serves excellent cookies.

By about halfway through the day I was ready to sit down on the floor, go foetal, and gibber, such was the state of hyper-stimulation of my brain. The only downside to the fabulousness of seeing all this is seeing it in such a short space of time, knowing that I’ll be heading back home and not seeing anything in the same vein for quite some time, and not having much time to mull and muse over things to fully absorb and appreciate them.

Les Demoiselles D’avignon!

My first Saturday night in New York: and I spend it doing my laundry. And running around surrounding streets because I kept needing more quarters. Gorgeously attired in an ensemb from my remaining clean clothes: bright red embroidered skirt, pink and turquoise striped top, lime green flip flops. Excellent. Fortunately it would take more than that for the East Villagers to take a second glance.

Clean socks!

Sunday and it was off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Having slept in and generally dithered about it took me quite awhile to get there, and once I did get in the general vicinity I had to then find coffee immediately, as several caffeine receptors in my frontal lobe had taken to dancing a samba on my nerves. So by the time I got in there and got looking it was in the afternoon, so I’m definitely going to have go back. But I went through their modern collection (Georgia O’Keefes, a Pollock that will have you drooling down the front of your shirt and leaving a hazardous puddle in front of it) and saw a temporary exhibition – Vollard and the art that went through his hands as a dealer – Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, Vuillard, Bonnard, Renoir, and so on. The guy had an eye, and some very good connections. Deeply strange experience of sitting on a bench, gazing in a state approaching a coma, at a wall of Cezannes (3 still lives and 4 late landscapes) and sharing the bench with 5 or so New Yawkers who were debating the merits of the various CSIs. Insanely loudly. Such a weird experience to be in front of such works and for them to be having the most incredibly mundane conversation. So that half the gallery could hear them. I’m never a stranger to a deep and passionate analysis of the trivial, but in front of Cezanne? And it’s never a debate is it? Everyone just takes turns in saying that the Vegas one is better than all the others, what were they thinking with that guy in the Miami one and then the conversation moves on to how many Law and Orders there are. Apparently Monday night is a particularly bad one for TV in NYC, just so you know. But then, they just had this conversation and then moved on, I’m the one putting it on the web.

So moving along.

Monday: Getting Fricked. I went to the library of the Frick Art Gallery and Reference Library: which is excellent, if only for the fact that it is an old school nineteenth century style library – dark wooden bookcases and desks, lamps, old stone building – very conducive to work. Even over my internal conga line of “I am in New York, yeah! I am in New York!” [repeat, ad infinitum]. They had some cool stuff, lots of catalogues from exhibitions from the ‘50s and ‘60s in New York and surrounds. Happy times.

Tuesday: Out to Queens to visit the MoMA research library – eee hee hee – art nerd joy! - catalogues, artist files and so on – eeeeheeeeheeeeheeee.

Tuesday night: the train back from Queens went to Time Square so I figured it was time to fulfil Tourist Tick Box #1 and look at all the pretty lights. And my, there really is a lot of them. And then I found a cheap ticket to Spamalot: The Monty Python Musical. So I bought it. It was a standing room ticket, so J & T were thrilled – Thrilled! - by my decision. But looking at how much room you got to sit down in, I think I made the right decision. And much better access to the toilets at interval as you get quite the head start when you are at the back of the room. Strange how I’ve never been invited to write theatre reviews isn’t it? The musical is great, I wasn’t sure how it would translate, or if it would just be for the serioius trekkie-level python fans that can ruin an entire evening once they start quoting at you, and heaven forbid you go on a road trip, but it has been really well written, nice mix of the lines they have to include (ni! And so forth) and new material. So go see it if you get the chance.

Wednesday: Whitney Museum – Picasso and American Artists, exploring, wait for it, the influence of Picasso on American artists, surprise! Great excuse to get a whole bunch of Picassos, Lichtensteins, Pollocks, de Koonigs together for a little party. The Pollock room was particularly great, as it had a nice span of his development as a painter.

After that I wandered about, looking at shiny things and trying not to impulse buy. So many pretty frocks!

Thursday: MoMA research library, Manhattan – more great books and catalogues, and in the pleasing surrounds of the new MoMA library which just opened this week. It is in the building on the other side of the sculpture garden from the main museum, so you get a great view over to the other building, the sculptures and 54th street. More internal conga. Thence, to Soho and Chinatown and a wander about, looking at some seriously cool shops and pondering just how much it would cost to send a shipping container home.