Chrysler Building
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.
I'm sorry, poor neglected Blogger blog. I do love you very much. Here is a fine photo I took whilst in New York. There. That makes it much better right? Right?
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Chrysler Building
Chrysler Building
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.
I'm sorry, poor neglected Blogger blog. I do love you very much. Here is a fine photo I took whilst in New York. There. That makes it much better right? Right?
Friday, July 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Current Fixations: New York City
One of my current fixations is the city that never sleeps. Despite growing up in Canada, thousands of kilometres away from New York City, parts of that city have ingrained into my psyche. We receive a lot of US television in Canada, and the amount of NYC imagery and culture that comes with it is surprising, and detailed! Should a Canadian kid know how hard it is to get a table at "Sardi's?" How many restaurants can you name from cities where you've never been? Few cities form such a cultural substrate.
Being in the “raised-by-TV” generation, I practically grew up on Sesame Street, not just the show, but somehow on that street itself. The street was clearly representing New York, with its distinctive brownstone buildings, a stop on the subway line and proximity to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I learned at a young age not to eat the pictures at the museum, long before I realized the Met was an actual place.
I knew muppets were puppets with hands up their backsides, so why would their environment be any more tangible? It's this kind of blurring of the real and the fantastic that makes New York magical.
I know NYC neighbourhood names such as Morningside Heights, Tribeca, SoHo and the Bowery, but I couldn't tell you what the neighbourhood I currently live in is supposed to be called. The streets and villages within NYC each have their own stories and culture, and the post-war tract housing of my youth can't compete for the same passions that “Wall Street” “Madison Ave” and “Broadway” do. Those aren't just addresses, they are Ideas. No movie worth watching was filmed in my hometown, and no one ever wrote a song about any of the streets there.
I know that much of the information that I have soaked up is dated and wrong. Sitcoms and movies set in New York are often written by people living in Hollywood. “The Brooklyn Dodgers,” is a phrase that falls from my mouth too readily for a team that hasn't existed since 1957. Tavern on the Green and the Rainbow Room are closed, Sardi's and The Russian Tea Room are well past their prime. The Cotton Club currently on west 125th street has no historical connection to the great jazz club of the past.
New York is simultaneously the present, the past, and the fictional.
In an effort to track the parts of New York that I could actually visit so I don't sound like Frank Sinatra in “On the Town”, I started keeping track with a simple map on Google. Whenever a travel show talks about the best bagels in the lower east side, or a website talks about an art installation at the Museum of Modern Art, I open up the map and drop a pin. I started including major landmarks and interesting stores, so over time the map became more pins than page.
Being in the “raised-by-TV” generation, I practically grew up on Sesame Street, not just the show, but somehow on that street itself. The street was clearly representing New York, with its distinctive brownstone buildings, a stop on the subway line and proximity to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I learned at a young age not to eat the pictures at the museum, long before I realized the Met was an actual place.
I knew muppets were puppets with hands up their backsides, so why would their environment be any more tangible? It's this kind of blurring of the real and the fantastic that makes New York magical.
I know NYC neighbourhood names such as Morningside Heights, Tribeca, SoHo and the Bowery, but I couldn't tell you what the neighbourhood I currently live in is supposed to be called. The streets and villages within NYC each have their own stories and culture, and the post-war tract housing of my youth can't compete for the same passions that “Wall Street” “Madison Ave” and “Broadway” do. Those aren't just addresses, they are Ideas. No movie worth watching was filmed in my hometown, and no one ever wrote a song about any of the streets there.
I know that much of the information that I have soaked up is dated and wrong. Sitcoms and movies set in New York are often written by people living in Hollywood. “The Brooklyn Dodgers,” is a phrase that falls from my mouth too readily for a team that hasn't existed since 1957. Tavern on the Green and the Rainbow Room are closed, Sardi's and The Russian Tea Room are well past their prime. The Cotton Club currently on west 125th street has no historical connection to the great jazz club of the past.
New York is simultaneously the present, the past, and the fictional.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Reason #23 why I want to go to New York
potatohead spiderman
Originally uploaded by istolethetv.
Here we see "Spuderman" attempt to get in a New York cab. "Spuderman" is a Hasbro mascot promoting the new "Spiderman Mr. Potatohead" at the recent New York Toy Fare.
Awesome.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Reason #327 I want to go to New York
They're Not Going to Be One-Upped on the Surrealism
Technorati Tags:
Overheard in New York, New York, Anton Webern, Surrealism
Guy #1: You know that Anton Webern's Quartet for the End of Time was performed in a concentration camp? Crazy.
Guy #2: Yeah. He died real weird. I forget how. I think the Nazis shot him.
Total stranger: Actually he was shot by Allied soldiers. He was breaking curfew smoking a cigarette, and they mistook him for his brother-in-law, who was an alleged Nazi spy.
Guy #1: Oh, I see. Thanks.
Total stranger: Any other questions? I just ride this train all day waiting to answer questions on twentieth-century music composition. The next car has an expert on Chekhov, and the conductor studies philosophy.
Guy #1: So anyway, Slavic girls are pretty hot.
Guy #2: Yeah, for real.
--7 train
Technorati Tags:
Overheard in New York, New York, Anton Webern, Surrealism
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