Sunday, May 29, 2011

Highline Goodness!

My friend and I strolled through the Highline Park the other day. Truly a lovely urban park! And gorgeous, dare I say breathtaking, views.




Saturday, May 21, 2011

Radio Play and NYPL Centennial

The trend is to celebrate the past. Especially with the threat of the imminent Rapture, it makes sense. Last night I saw Reggie Watts's and Tommy Smith's Radio Play at PS 122, a comedic, surreal send-up of old radio programs. Fittingly, it takes place mostly in the dark.

I recommend the show; it plays through May 28. Catch it! And/or a Reggie Watts performance anytime you have the chance.

(Reggie Watts, photo credit: Noah Kalina)

And this weekend marks the New York Public Library Centennial. Interesting, one of the free events for the centennial is a performance installation (really, isn't "play" such an antiquated, vague term anyway?) called Shuffle, which features passages from 1920s literature shuffled by computer algorithms. I expect the result will be as surreal and disorienting - and even humorous - as Radio Play.


(Photo credit: Caroline Voagen Nelson)

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Carroll Gardens, Gowanus and Rainy Day Musings on Love

I didn't let the rain last night stop me from an adventure. My friends got in touch with me to see this indie documentary, My Heart Is An Idiot, at Littlefield, a performance and art space in the Gowanus.

Coming from Williamsburg, I figured my easiest route would be to take the G to Carroll Gardens and then walk over on Carroll St. to the Park Slope side of the Gowanus. And what a gorgeous walk. I even passed the old location of ISSUE Project Room, a gorgeous space on Carroll St. between Bond and Nevins that is now BKLYN Yard.

I snapped a couple of shots during my walk. These don't capture the ethereal beauty of the place, the fragrant gardens and the humid, earthly feeling of the misty night.




My Heart Is An Idiot was a thoughtful documentary that followed around one man, Davy Rothbart and his professed search for true love. Rothbart, the creator of Found Magazine, tours around the country promoting Found and musing about love, namely in the form of two girls: the one he is obsessed with but with whom he has yet to forge anything more than a friendship with sexual overtones, and the girl with whom he is romantically involved but with whom he lacks a sense of commitment. As even his mother said in the doc, he is a "con artist" who is more focused on the pursuit of true love than the actual commitment of a relationship; as his one female friend put it, he is good at romance but not relationships. The beauty of this documentary is that it portrays Rothbart as the flawed, quirky individual he is in a very humanistic and sympathetic way. Thank director, collaborator and friend David Meiklejohn for that.  


Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Museums in the Spring!

I just wrote and published an article on Suite 101, A Brief Guide to Midtown and Uptown NYC Museums.  There is also the Target First Saturday at BAM this Saturday and so many more events!