Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

I was groggily stumbling through Grand Central this morning trying to find the north exit and then I came across this, which looked like the biggest dinkiest school-play set I had ever seen. I thought it was really impressive. I loitered around for about 10 minutes, making myself late for work which was dumb since nothing happened and I realized this was just a promotional stunt to raise Heidi awareness and I was there too early.

This disturbing and very large image (it was about the size of a small billiard table) loomed above us at a cheese steak restaurant on Saturday night. It was the only time I felt unsafe in Philadelphia. Well, that and on the train ride home when my coat fell from the storage rack above and it seemed like a big black monkey or dog or something was lunging for Jeremy and I. Since the two us were sitting facing Katherine and Dan while all of us were absorbed in various newspapers and magazines, it had the perfect surprise effect: one of complete terror and then much laughing.

Some of Megan’s recent work.

I had never seen any of Megan’s work before (except for the 7-inches she and Jon put together) and I was so impressed. There was sculpture and watercolors and quilts (!) and I want it all!!!

Philadelphia was full of scary gothic stone buildings. Next time I go I’m going to need to see to see more blight.

Terrifying window display on 23rd street, near 6th Ave.

I guess this means spring is on the way. Seeing my first Mr. Softee truck on Fifth Avenue tonight got me thinking about summer and how I’m probably too fat to wear the stuff I had last year. Sigh. And then I had a flashback about how I only chose shirts last summer based on the contrast of how severe the difference was between the sweat-soaked part of the shirt and the dry part of the shirt.
I am looking forward to the ice cream trucks, especially the ones you see in Brooklyn with hand-painted signs and weird beats coming out of the PA.

Okay, this is the last time anyone will hear about the free records from Friday night. Courtesy of Katherine.

Friday evening on Broadway, near Union Square.

Mary and I went to check out the Ryan McGinley show at the Whitney on Saturday afternoon. It’s created a big stir around town due to the comparisons to Nan Goldin and that all the pictures of nudity and puke. There was a sign by the door that warned of extreme sexual content and I thought, ugh, why am I here with my sister? But the show was really small and we both walked away thinking, that’s so few photos for so much attention, i.e. wouldn’t any young photographer who lived in NY for the last 5 years be able to raid their files and find 12 interesting photos?
Perhaps.
But I liked it anyway, especially the grainy night photography and the portraits. There was a book of his in the store in the lobby, so I got to see an additional ten or so photos and my impression remained a firm: eh. But the real thrill was this giant room filled with robots!!! It part of a larger architecture show and the signs said it had something to do with the depersonalization of society represented by way of we could not see the robots up close, except by the aid of a bank of video monitors and how that symbolizes the blah, blah. And I was like, I wish these robots were mine! They looked so cool moving around in this big white Kubrick room. There was even a part where the conveyor belt floor took the toys to an underground section one by one and they were x-rayed. And then the x-rays were displayed on this large flat screen monitor, similar to luggage at the airport. I tried to take a picture of this, because it looked so incredibly cool. But by then, the guard was on to me and screamed to cut it out with the camera.

Patrick and Kelly return to NY for an emotionally charged weekend.

It was a pretty fun weekend due largely to Patrick and Kelly’s visit to NY from Austin. We hung out late into the night on Friday at Freddies. When we stumbled out of there we found stacks of records being left out for the trash. This is a pretty common sight in this neighborhood to see a few LPs stuck in a garbage can, but this was a pretty massive amount. I used to have dreams like this. We descended upon it like buzzards. But it was mostly weird stuff and outright trash. Katherine took some great pictures of it, which I’ll probably put up later in the week.
And then Saturday night we went to a bunch of bars in Cobble Hill and then slowly made our way back up Atlantic Avenue to Freddys, where this time many glasses were broken.

Court Street.

Atlantic Avenue.

The aquarium in the back room of Freddys.