The Arts!

Me and Nori with Alice in Wonderland

Central Park Conservatory Garden

I've only scratched the surface of the visual and performing arts here, and I'll probably never experience it to the fullest extent unless I win the lottery and quit my job to see art full-time. Even then I'm not sure it's possible with all the art at random twists and turns.

I keep meaning to sign up for galleries' listserves so I can attend opening night exhibits, but haven't gotten around to that quite yet.  I did read an article about the Upper East Side drawing more gallery owners now that Chelsea's gallery spaces have become exorbitantly expensive.  This brings me to one of the more embarrassing experiences I've had here.  I read about an exhibit opening for a new-ish gallery on the UES, but I skimmed the article regarding the exhibit and didn't really understand the concept anyway.

wall mural in Little Italy

After work one day, Eduardo and I went cross town to this gallery (that will remain unnamed in this article) on the second floor of a tiny building.  We walked up a flight of stairs, then peered into what looked like a house-warming party.  We walked up another flight of stairs, only to find a business that was not a gallery. We returned to the 2nd floor, walked into an empty room with just a few people in it, and Eduardo asked, is this the (Unnamed) Gallery?  The woman just looked at Eduardo, pointed to a man in a suit, and said, "It's his gallery.  Ask him."  Eduardo exclaimed aloud, "But where's the art?  Are we in the right place?!"

As it turns out, we were in the right place, but the art was basically the empty room, made to look as if it was ready for someone to move in.  There was another room off to the side, with more people in it, standing around, talking to each other, drinking beer, but not looking at the few pieces in the room. Eduardo and I left within a minute.  While I didn't regret "not getting it", I did feel bad for the gallery owner, who I believe was just starting out with a novel exhibit but without a clearly translated concept.

wall mural in Little Italy

My take-away from this experience, is that there is an abundance of art here, and while I want to be open to new artists and ideas I also have to be discerning with how to spend my time.

Central Park Reservoir after Neue Galerie

That being said, Eduardo and I attended a free museum night on the UES.  We skipped the Guggenheim to attend the Neue Galerie, a museum devoted to early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design.  We enjoyed the special exhibit on "Degenerate Art" (the attack on modern art in Nazi Germany) and after our walk through Central Park we were inspired to watch the excellent documentary "The Rape of Europa" on Netflix.  

Moon Chest

One of the best exhibits I've seen here is the Ai Wei Wei exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.  His pieces are visually pleasing and well-crafted, but they are also politically and culturally thought-provoking.  He reveals problems in China and with the government at the expense of his personal and artistic freedom.

rebar from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake rubble

Last Saturday, Eduardo and I went to El Museo Del Barrio and the Jewish Museum, which were both free.  I learned quite a lot about Jewish history and culture (e.g., I did not know what the difference was between temple and synagogue), but I most enjoyed the special exhibit, Mel Bochner's "Strong Language".  At first glance, many of his pieces seem simple and silly (there was one painting with various "fart" words,  including "windy pop"), but his sketches show the considered thought in the order and type of words, and careful use of color.

There are also numerous outdoor summer concerts in the parks here.  A couple weeks ago, I met up with Amena, Lena, Grace, and Syrette in Prospect Park to listen to Amos Lee perform.  I hadn't heard of him before, but really enjoyed his music and his 80s/90s throwbacks, including a Boyz II Men rendition of End of the Road. I'm glad that Amena rallied everyone to enjoy the concert, as I'm not typically one to seek out musical concerts and need to develop my ear and appreciation for musicians.

With the upcoming schedule of summer concerts in the park, I'll surely be posting more on my developing musical ear...

I "heart" food.

This next post is dedicated specifically to my food-related discoveries in the past month and a half.

Freda's Caribbean & Soul Cuisine

New York has an abundance of food, both really bad food, and really good food.  (Thank you, Yelp, for assisting with these distinctions, as I don't have an unlimited budget to take many chances.)  There are also many traditional dishes as well as experimenters who succeed and fall flat on their faces. (Chorizo ice cream, anyone?  Oddfellows in Williamsburg or the Lower East Side is the place to go.)

Food has also provided me with opportunities to catch up with old friends and to make new ones.

A couple weeks ago, Eduardo and I met with my good friend and former roommate Rena, and her husband Mario, at Isabella's on Columbus.  They told us a cute story about one of their first dates, where they went to have dinner and Rena established very early on that even though they were sharing a plate of food, exactly half of it was her portion.  Eduardo and I aren't great at sharing things like one ice cream cone, so we had a laugh at the relationship challenges of sharing tasty delights - perfect timing as our shared dessert arrived, a dark chocolate "bag" of fresh raspberry mousse, seasonal berries, and whipped cream.  Yum.

Val & Lena

Last week, I hung out with my friend Lena and her friend Val, who I now consider a friend of mine as well. Lena and I have been friends for many years, and Val and I actually went to law school together, but didn't know each other at the time.  Lena is in NY on an oncology fellowship, while Val was just passing through on her way to Europe.  

We had dinner at The Rabbithole and then made our way to Momofuku Milk Bar, where we overindulged a bit on the cereal milk soft serve (I want to shake the hand of the genius who came up with that flavor), a compost cookie (my personal fave), a marshmallow cornflake cookie, crack pie, and b'day truffles.  Val and I met up again and had Israeli food at Azuri Cafe in Hell's Kitchen.  It was a tiny, no-frills place, but the food was dang good (we both got the small falafel plates).

Totto Ramen

Last night Eduardo and I tried Ki Sushi in the Boerum Hill neighborhood.  The TNT Lover and Fashion rolls were delicious and I'm happy to say it's our new go-to sushi restaurant when we get a hankering.  It has been challenging to find my favorite Asian cuisines (Thai, Vietnamese, Korean) for prices and authenticity comparable to those in SF, but we're getting there.  Luckily, Hell's Kitchen, which is a short walk from where we live, has a number of good Thai options, and two of my favorite ramen places, Totto Ramen and Terakawa Ramen.

Perhaps because SF does not have a large Caribbean population, I've particularly enjoyed the Caribbean and soul food options here.  We've hit up Freda's, south of the Columbia U. campus.  The jerk shrimp plate was ginormous but spicy and delicious.  I tried the homemade sorrel, but it was a bit too sweet for me. At Amy Ruth's in Harlem, Eduardo cleaned up his "Reggie Harris" plate of honey fried chicken, mac n cheese, and potato salad, while I, loyal to my alma mater, ordered the "President Barack Obama" with smothered chicken, mac n cheese, and collard greens.  

This is also the best time of year for frozen treats, and I do say "treats" because they are relatively pricey.  My theory is that these businesses have to make their money now before they close shop for the winter.  Our first encounter was after a Cuban dinner near Columbus Circle.  We stopped by Grom Gelato, a chain with unique flavors like "Torta Siciliana".  I haven't bothered to research the difference between ice cream and custard, but after an exploratory walk in the upper west side neighborhood, we stopped by Rita's for vanilla custard with mango Italian ice. Refreshing!  We've been to Van Leeuwen in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn twice now, trying the pistachio, dark chocolate hazelnut, earl grey, and salted caramel flavors.  My favorite gelato so far, however, is L'Albero dei Gelati in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  The nicest surprise has been the "Dominican ices" in Spanish Harlem. Eduardo and I were on our way to the Target and spied this nice man and his cart, so we stopped for a $1 treat.  The fine texture of the ice reminded me of the Japanese guri guri I grew up with in Honolulu.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I'm not losing any weight here, even though I regularly walk until my feet are ready to fall off.  Some may say that cupcakes are passe, but I love me a good cupcake.  Yesterday, Eduardo and I stopped by some incubator stores (reminded me of the stores in Hong Kong, Thailand, and other parts of Asia) in Brooklyn and shared a tasty tres leches cupcake.  Another good cupcake find was Molly's in the West Village, as the red velvet cupcake (a good standard for comparison) and creme brulee cupcake (very nice hard caramel top with an injection of smooth cream inside vanilla cake) were moist, just sweet enough, and tasty.  I do give a frowny face to a place in SoHo called "Rice to Riches", where we tried "Be My Banana Coconut".  It's a unique concept; rice pudding in all flavors with the option for toppings.  Maybe I just don't like rice pudding enough. I also found some of the decorations offensive, although they were meant to be hip and funny.

How sweet it is...

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

- Oscar Wilde

Where to begin.  I couldn't think of a clever title for this blog on life in (and around) New York, but oddly I first thought about how much I love San Francisco and the Bay Area.  I really do. Yet, at the same time, I had been a San Franciscan for much of my adult life, and for better or for worse, my life had become comfortable and well-worn.  When Eduardo was offered a job opportunity in New York, we had many practical and philosophical discussions about our lives together in San Francisco and what our lives might look like if we moved across the country. Part of our conversations focused on how much New York has to offer in the arts (visual, performance, culinary, etc.) and culture, as well as its proximity to foreign lands we have yet to explore.  It was by no means an easy decision, since it meant moving farther away from family and friends, as well as a job I enjoyed the past year and a half.

So, I did a quick search about "life" and "living", and Wilde's quote captured the conversations and thoughts I had about leaving San Francisco to be here in New York. I recognize fully that if I have the chance to "live", I should seize it and run with it.  So there you have it.

"The Secret Life of Eduardo Mitty"

I've been a New Yorker for only a month and a half, but I feel like I've been living it halfway between local and tourist. It surely helps that I moved end of Spring/start of Summer, since the weather beckons people to come out and play.

On Friday night, Eduardo and I went to Radio City Music Hall to see Dave Chappelle to see him perform in his last show of a sold-out series.

It was interesting to hear about his domestic life through his act, although he seems to have lost some of his edge, perhaps precisely because he is settled down in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with a wife, two kids, and a dog named "Baba".  (I tried fact-checking his dog's name but wasn't successful in my quick Google search.)  In any case, I like his observational humor and creative story-telling (I won't give any specifics since my re-telling his jokes will fall flat.) 

Mos Def and Talib Kweli made a surprise musical guest appearance after Chappelle left the stage, so we stayed a bit longer.  [I'll take this chance to say "Thanks Delores!" for telling me about his "Keepin' It Real" sketches, which directly led to my snatching up the tickets as soon as the shows were advertised.]

Yesterday, we (including Nori) went to the West Village, which was mostly cordoned off in anticipation of the Pride Parade today.  We stopped into a mid-century modern furniture store, where the friendly owner chatted and informed us of a number of things going on in Brooklyn.  

So, we dropped Nori off at home, caught the tail-end of the Brazil-Chile game (exciting! but I do hate to see the game go to penalty kicks), and headed to the Domino Sugar Refining Plant (soon to be demolished to make way for new construction) in Brooklyn to catch the 2nd to last weekend of  Kara Walker's "A Subtlety" installation ("an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant").  

While we had to wait on line for about half an hour, the installation was free and well worth the wait.  I also enjoy people-watching, particularly in such a young and casual/fashionable neighborhood like Williamsburg.  So far, I've come to love the abundance, creativity, and thought-provoking statements of the free art all over New York.

Eduardo remembered Walker's art from years ago when he and I went museum-hopping in Washington DC.  It was hard for me to believe that the sculptures were pure sugar, based on the scale of the main piece, but some of the smaller, caramelized art pieces had shattered and created sticky brown pools that were undeniably sugary.