I arrived in ny around 7am sunday. i'd forgotten to tell gavin when i'd get in so i woke him up to ask directions. a taxi brought me out to his place. it's kinda a run down neighborhood that's turning around. gavin says in the last 20 years, this neighborhood was one of the worst in ny.
the view from gavin's rooftop
it's colder than hell too. the clouds are thinking about snowing on us.
gavin thought it would make a good picture if i climbed to the top of what must have been a water tower. it sticks out too far over the edge of the building so i only climbed this high. it's early in the morning so gavin's a little punchy still
ok, this one's a little complicated if you care. the piece in the middle is really just a mirror with a table painted on it. around the corner, in the reflection, is one of the artist's greatest photos ever (i overheard) of two people. i like the piece created when the mirror, the photo and the observers are combined.
holy shit! it's brian dewan! this guy opened for TMBG at stanford in like 1993 (with frente). i could talk for hours about this guy and i'm not kidding. i'm a huge fan of his and i'd never met him until i ran into him randomly at the armory show. he wanted to put me on his mailing list (even though i'll be on another continent) and i told him i was already on his mailing list. google "brian dewan" and try to figure out who's crazier, him or his fan(s).
no explanation neeeded
it's snowing
stay away from my kettle corn
oscar party at john's. it's a pretty amazing setup.
last time i was in NY, justin and i met johnnie here (grand central i think) and this was counting down to the olympics. now it's just counting.
please oh please appreciate the store in the background and the dog's feet in the foreground.
i think spiderman 2 had a scene on brooklyn bridge. here's a web shot of my own.
manhattan bridge from the brooklyn bridge
downtown
bridges got me into this mess. here's a shot of one bridge from another
meeting up with zack berman.
can zack use this picture for his j-date profile? not with that sexy man stealing the limelight
j-date picture. in front of the whitney museum. scarf + museum = marriage material
piano bar. sans piano player. at the previous bar, rebeccah had been playing 'only living boy in new york' by paul simon over and over as per our requests. this guy humored us by playing another simon hit. i forget which one. later in new york i would hear 'late in the evening' by paul simon at some other drinking establishment (lunasa, a soccer pub) in the lower east side.
dave post-coital
the death star hospital
this woman was doing an AMAZING puppet show with her ass cheaks at 'the flushing meadows station.
breakfast (at 2pm) at the Life Cafe
is this picture a waste of space?
i'm not sure which word is more incorrect: “medical” or “building”
it's me in front of building designed to attract terrorists. three legs. go citibank!
apple by central park
johnnie pointed out that the apple store is entirely underground. doesn't that make it a potato store? also, i'm fat.
purim costumes available? does being an easter bunny for purim count?
the pink sign in the background says, 'think safety'. when that top bolt dropped out and the sign swung like a guillatine, do you think anyone was thinking safety?
this is a photo in the goethe museum of the cathedral in berlin. i've been there.
the BEST picture of the entire trip so far.
find skeletor. this is in the restroom of the NY noodle house. i was here with justin, marissa and shannon in 2005. good food.
david and monica. david sure knows how to order at this restaurant.
salty squid!
see the background “salt baked squids”. damn good. oh wait, the reason i took this picture is cuz the couple in the background cracked me up. the body language of the woman was totally cold. maybe cuz the guy looked like gerard depardue and she wasn't having any of it.
new way to drink beer?
wonton behavior
five passengers? i no see you!
i took this picture not just because gavin's housemates have a spoon and a plate running away together but in blue it reads, “we are fucked thru the eclipse”. gavin's place is huge. it's ouot in the industrial part of brooklyn that's being torn down and rebuilt for college kids and artists. after leaving we went to tina's breakfasteria. i didn't finish everything on my plate and our bill came to $8.00 even.
i'm on a special “S” line that shuttles from times square to grand central. it's all done up on the inside and this picture barely captures it all.
inside the guggenheim. no cameras are allowed inside the gallery so i took pictures from the entry foiyer looking up. it's a spiral that really makes it easy to explore.
the gugg was showing a bunch of spanish artists. from El Greco to Picasso (and everything in between! ha ha ha... i don't get it)
also looking up at the gugg
while walking the 'museum mile' i passed this dog and loved its posture. the owner or handler walked by as i was taking the picture and asked if i was gonna make the dog famous. not in this lifetime. please post a comment letting me know what you think he might be saying to me.
the met. been there, done that.
how insane is this. i passed two women taking a picture of flat stanley in times square. to be fair, their minds were just as blown that i knew what they were doing. i asked if i could get a picture and for awhile i thought i wasn't going to get one of me on my camera. they even took one of me on their camera. another weird thing is that they're in times square and flat stanley is getting his picture taken in front of a truck (because boys like triucks). the two women live in new york but the brunette's brother doesn't so he sent out a copy of stanley from the book. small world.
i figured i'd get stanley in a shot that really shows off new york.
this is the MoMa. looking up. the building is, of course, also a work of art. so were the bathrooms.
in the background is a picasso. just to the right is one of pablo's works where the eyes, ears and stuff are all crazy and jumbled. he did this and that within months. i didn't know he was switching back and forth in styles. this trip (seeing picaso everywhere) made me realize how little i like picaso. but that doesn't mean he's near the top of the long list of painters i don't like.
this picture needs a little explaining. on the left is a description of the artwork. the artist's explanation sounded a lot like the explanation of the fictional character's explanation of his green with a yellow stripe in kurt vonnegut jr's 'breakfast of champions'. i wanted to remember this painting and i liked that there were people just sitting down taking it all in. the MoMa had lots of what i would consider pretentious art. an empty room that would have the lights turn on and off every 5 seconds. it also hada 2.5 hour version of warhol's 8.5 hour 'empire state building' film.
speaking of warhol. when i got to this exhibit i felt like i could relate to tom robbins' characters in 'skinny legs and all' where it's hard to tell what constitutes art. does giving up and copying other peoples' stuff count? who knows. and if you're curious, that person on the left did stop in time to avoid hitting that painting.
stick of gum
3 different flavors of hazelnut coffee. except one is spelled "hezelnut“ the propretor thought i was weird for taking this picture. i think he's weird for spelling hazelnut two different ways.
53rd gourmet deli. warming up inside. this is a picture of the street as it's getting dark. my reflection is also centered in the shot
soup
gavin and i went to see the producers. Tony Danza was in it. here's gavin shouting at the top of his lungs at intermission, “HEY ANGELLA!” just kidding, he's yawning. he burned the candle at both ends while i was in town. poor guy. but producers was a great show. very funny.
it was “creamingly funny”
starring tony danza
here's a well-advertised bar by gavin's house in brooklyn
this is the transfer station (red to orange) in d.c. / virginia metro station. it's underground and i thought i'd take a picture of the waffle ceiling.
when i arrived at the curley's mcmansion in virginia i learned they have two cats and a dog. one cat (the one shown) looks like a concerned version of jojo. he wouldn't give up his love like my cat does. he's like a 120% version of jojo though. bigger and more serious.
this is the $50,000 fountain tom decided to add to their backyard. i think it's a nice change to the plain grass lawn that must have been there before.
see, this cat has a constantly concerned look on his face. furrowed brow and all. also, notice the size of this place. the living room is in the background. marsha wanted to show me their place in the adirondacks but the houses webcam was down at the moment.
the living room is in the background in this picture too. there's another set of stairs on the other side of the house.
washington square. it's a big roundabout that doesn't work like a roundabout.
from washington square (in foggy bottom) you can see a mix of old brick building and much more modern glass and stone.
this was my first glimpse of the washington monument so i naturally took a picture like a good little tourist. eventually i realized it would infect every shot i took. you'll see...
soccer players on the capitol mile. i told one guy warming up on the sidelines that i wished i'd worn shorts so i could jump in and he said as long as i had decent shoes... i was wearing my turf cleats... but i didn't want to play in jeans. the field was pretty messed up too from all the rain and snow. oh! and look! it's the washington monument and the capitol building in the background.
lincoln memorial. i never realized how huge it is.
no sliding down banisters. i think abe would object to that sign.
state o' the union (take 1)
lots of field trips here. and lots of pictures being taken. the guy on the right is the guy who took the next couple of pics of me. he had a good eye. you know how most people when you hand them your camera just take a picture where you're cut off at your ankles, not this guy.
see! i'm slightly off center.
i took this picture because i knew justin would appreciate the part about two people who believe in the same god fighting and praying for different results. it's a twist on what we have today. lincoln had an amazing way of putting it. he actually told the country during his state of the union that god might just punish both sides (it certainly looked like it at the time) and said, the war might not end until every drop of blood was spilled by both sides. an honesty to his people i know we'll never see again. just breathtaking. the great part about capitol mile though is that it just kept getting better
another picture of the washington monument... and the capitol building. and i think that slab in the background is called the reflecting pond. this picture was taken by a canadian on a purple bike. we talked a bit so that i could feel comfortable enough to ask her to line up this picture just right (“you're making sure the monument's not coming out of my head right?”).
vietnam memorial wall. entering from the wrong side.
reading all the names was interesting but i just felt like a tourist surrounded by other tourists. the power of the whole thing didn't hit me until i saw an older man on his side etching the name of 'william r youngblood' onto the back of the memorial pamphlet. that started the tears. i wanted to ask how the man was related to the man incribed in the wall but it seemed inappropriate to interrupt him. but when i saw him holding a disposable camera up the wall (like 3 inches from the highly reflective wall) i offered to take a picture on my digital camera just to make sure that it came out readable. he kept his hand up under the name (maybe to help my camera focus) and i got his email address. for the rest of the day i felt like i was walking around with a valuable treasure and i was so scared i'd lose either the email or the camera. i sent the email off the minute i got back to the curleys'.
i think that guy works there to help you find family members. there's a television interview going on in the background.
is that the washington monument in the background? no way! i swear there's only one but somehow that little bugger gets around.
here's an ok story: i couldn't go down this one path because there was this guy about my age redirecting traffic. i asked what film they were shooting and he said he couldn't tell me. i said, “why's that? because i haven't heard of it?” i think he was confused because he said, “you've probably heard of it. it's the third bourne identity.”
i got a woman to take my picture here. the film set is way in the background. the woman asked me where the korean memorial was and this map that marsha gave me helped us find it. i decided to get an action shot of me looking at the map for the korean memorial. she recommended that i go to the FDR memorial right by it.
here's the world war ii memorial
and this is the inside of the wwii memorial with lincoln in the background.
there were a lot of stars here. i overheard two dudes saying that they had counted that there were approximately 23 sheets of stars with 16 x 11 stars on each. i then asked what the stars represented and they said, “one star for every american soldier killed”. it might have been rude but i said, “that can't be enough stars. there's only like 4000 stars there”. later i found the info desk and asked what each star represented and the woman said each one represented 100 americans killed. the guy behind me asked how many americans were killed and she said approximately “400,000”.
eatin' a hot dog in front of the white house. the guy taking it was from england and liked that i was being disrespectful.
there are 3 guys in all black on the roof. ninja assassins?
treasury department. it didn't have an atm.
i found myself on penn street. it has the backs of some of the famous buildings on the mall
the center for the study of reaganomics and the trickle-down theory
old post office
this is where the magic takes place!
ice skating rink in the art sculpture garden. it was so warm that there was like 1/4“ of water on top.
i was gonna just skate around like an idiot because it would have been so neat to say that i did it. but i got the guy at the skate rental place to talk me out of it. i shot video of him and the woman behind me telling me not to do it but accidentally deleted it. I SWEAR THEY TOLD ME NOT TO DO IT!
me at the air and space museum. that is the ACTUAL spirit of saint louis! no front window!
this made me think of small dave for some reason. maybe because it's a bunch of people standing around being clueless.
and that's the ACTUAL spaceship 1 that won the X-prize!
this is as close as i got to the capitol building
zoomed in
someone left their keys on this park bench. in the background is one of the smithsonian buildings.
smithsonian + carousel = renew!
kites fly by the washington monument
a kite flies by the washington monument
korean war memorial. weird. not as moving as i expected.
there was a polished granite wall with etched in photographs of soldiers. pretty amazing. in the background you can see the statues of the soldiers. in the middle ground IT'S ME!
four hours later i turn around and poof it's shannon the canadian with the purple bike... and yes, the washington monument.
we chatted so long i didn't get a chance to see FDR's memorial. oh well. marsha says i can see it next time.
i took this picture because on of the russian girls is straight out of the 80s.
shouldn't jamba juice stay out of politics? the george washington university building in the background is called “the ivory tower”. what an appropriate name for a classroom for gw students.
this is the stop that i took to walk the the capitol mile. i kept calling it “soggy bottom”
this sign kinda cracked me up. i think i got made fun of for taking this picture.
i thought i should take a picture of me in dc... but instead i got a picture of some other guy in dc airport.
first thing i did when i arrived in heathrow was panic and book a bus ride to hereford, london (5 hours away) to visit wrenna's father and his family. this picture is the older brother thomas, dan's wife jo(anna) and wrenna's dad, dan.
this is the younger brother bobby.
jo and dan. wrenna asked that i take lots of pictures so here you go hoobs
this is the bobbs watching that discovery channel show where that cocky british guy goes around 'surviving' in the rainforest. it's crazy how over the top this guy is. the kids and the family all love the show.
we ate venison and pork burgers and they were so good... bobby likes to put lots of horseradish on his... this is what happens.
poseur
bobby wanted to get a picture of him doing this trick where he falls over backwards on the chair. dan explained that the kids got very unruly and excited when they heard a stranger was rolling into town. it's true. they went nuts.
this is bobby's trick of running/dancing in place.
here it is. so camera shy
view from the guest bathroom
i had the whole upstairs all to myself
this is thomas showing off his soccer jacket and his 'most improved' award
in front of the house. we're about to run to the garden to visit the grandparents and help move slate onto a new snooker table.
fairtime
this is how pg&e works over here.
dan explained it wouldn't be an english garden without peacocks wandering around.
in that glass building is an indoor pool. on the grass is a croquet field.
dan took me on a tour of the garden
dad, you'd love this. it's a covered walkway with many varieties of roses. this place has every variety of plant.
outdoor table with more slate from a snooker table.
dan explained that this house used to be a toll type house along an ancient road used by the romans and other ancient peoples. the road literally goes right through the house. the whole family has deteected the whole place using metal detectors and found jewelery and old money worth thousands of dollars.
here's the road and an old gate as it approaches the place. pretty nuts.
not to unromanticisze the peacock and its beauty, but there's peacock shit all over the property.
this is dan and his friends moving these huge slabs of slate for the snooker table. one of the guys is missing a finger (i was an idiot and was too polite to get a picture of it). when dan someone asked when he lost it, he said, “sometime around last christmas”. crazy. i didn't know people still lost fingers. apparently dan's friends do.
soak this in. it's a poem/essay that bobby (the younger one) wrote. not an assignement. he just writes. there's also a sketch of a robot (lightly) below it. saok it in.
wrenna specifically asked that i get pictures of the boys on the way to school in their uniforms.
father and son
don't ask me about the hat
the morning zoo
bobbs tries to run everywhere on the way to school.
running to class. running late.
here's the intersection where i looked the wrong way and almost got creamed. i learned my lesson pretty damn fast.
the kids go to school right by that huge-ass church. nice commute eh?
here's thomas' school
there used to be a moat around this whole castle place.
morning rush at the 'silver spoon' school
this is the bear that bobbs drew up.
me and the castle
ok, now i'm in london. lost as usual.
i was trying to find jo's sister's work. i was camera happy at first.
this is a self-taken picture. this was the last time i smiled for a few hours. that train line turned out to be a bullet train to the middle of nowhere. took me 1 hour to get back from a 20 minute ride.
me, not smiling. i rue that map.
a cold and misty evening on the albert bridge. turned out to be a pretty fruity bridge
this is alicia's kitchen. it's no bigger than it needs to be. and to save room it has a washer/drier in one. i would trade alicia's kitchen for the one i have in south africa at the drop of a hat.
this the view outside my window. look! it's london! crazy.
this is what i ate (and drank) at the local pub where we watched the chelsea match. that burger has angus beef, sausage, bacon and an egg. alicia just ate a bag of 'nobby nuts'
that's my host, alicia. wrenna's aunt.
trafalgar square at night. the british national gallery of arts is behind it. some of the greatest artwork in the world is in there. luckily it was closed so i didn't have to make up an excuse not to go in.
trafalgar square's hustle and bustle at night
primary colors found in the local buses and scooters.
south africa - book now (and for those of you that played the 'worms' games... that's a holy hand grenade.)
once again, travelling alone means it's difficult to get a picture of yourself. especially when you're at a touristy area where nobody speaks english and the curators won't touch your camera to avoid lawsuits.
you gotta _hand_ it to me, this picture turned out pretty good.
not dishwasher safe
the british museum is just mindblowing
so many people and amazing statues. they're all worth an arm and a leg... or at least a leg. i'm not a fan of the full-body statues so this room was a bust for me.
and then i found waldo
the rosetta stone
it's hard to grasp the sense of scale in this place. but the people coming down the stairs in the background were coming down from the third floor. the giant cylinder is the reading room or library where a bunch of famous artists used to sit and read.
the information desk had a girl working there who was born and raised in south africa. she told me to be careful. i thanked her for scaring the shit out of me. just hours earlier i'd met someone at an electronics store while trying to buy some power outlet converters who said pietermaritzberg was his “favourite... well actually second favourite place in south africa”. he was born and raised there too. while i'm on the subject, i found an electronics shopping store where they don't have a single product out to see. just rows of books you flip through with pictures of the stuff and you write down a code and they fetch it for you. if you buy a watch (like i did) or jewelry, you can look at it before you buy it. otherwise, the first time you see it outside the catalog will be at home. shopping in a big city.
the piccadilly line runs way under london. some tube lines and ny subway you just go down a flight of stairs and you're there. not so with the piccadilly line. there were sometimes two escalators this size you'd have to climb.
old and new. taken from the millenium bridge
that in the background is the overly grandiose and insanely over budget st. paul's cathedral
cold and sunny. wear your hat whilst in london. also, say 'whilst' not 'while'
that building in the background is the fascinating (from a structural standpoint) building known as 'the gherkin'.
this girl was about to be thrown out of the area for stepping over the railing to take a picture of the guard on duty. the guard who guards the guard called the teacher over to tell him he was responsible for her actions and to explain why she was getting tossed.
you're not allowed to take pictures once you're inside where the crown jewels are. so i took this picture. my fly is down. i later realized that i got 'crown jewels' and 'family jewels' mixed up.
here's my gun collection
if it's super old, it's stone. if it's super new it's glass. the only thing made out of wood in london are trees.
the yellow flowers are daffodils
shoe-cam
one thing about london; it was similar to new york in that so much of the music we listen to is about london. Lawsuit's song “don't go to london, it's under construction” (they say there's a raven at the top of the tower of london, London, LONDON!) and every pogues song was going through my head the whole time.
the next morning i realized kew (pronounced “q”) gardens right by alicia's house was open so i popped in thinking i would be there for an hour or so. even though this time of year isn't the best time of year to go, i still spent hours there walking around taking it all in.
one of the palms there was over 200 years old. the amazing part of the greenhouse experience is hardly the plants (but make no mistake, the variety of plants is amazing), it's the fact that people from the time of dickens and hardy(?) were walking through this garden and maybe even the greenhouse in their ridiculous outfits and parasols seeing plants they had never ever seen. think about it: no television. no camera. imagine how utterly alien ferns and palm trees looked to a londoner. i tried to put myself in those shoes.
200,000 daffadils
plant that seems like it should be from a cartoon or comic book
living art
the care that goes into manicuring these rows is amazing.
jabba the hut's greenhouse
this is the tulip tree i was enamoured with in berkeley just a week earlier. in london, they're just now starting to bloom.
art shot (with free airplane)!
this was a cute family. and i didn't have any/many pictures of me on the tube
i couldn't figure out what i was supposed to do at harrod's. it made me sneeze the entire time i was there.
the park is right by buckingham palace where the guards were doing their weird changing of the guards thing. imagine my dismay when no diapers were involved. and i think that one guy is trying to sell those other two magazine subscriptions.
the american eating potato chips and starbucks coffee
i spent 5 minutes trying to line this shot up. the more touristy the site is, the harder it is to get someone that speaks decent english to understand the picture you want them to take. the 'Wtf' starts now.
at the london performance of Wicked. it's a teenage anthem but i kept getting all choked up because i'm a sucker for this stuff and because the entire theater was packed with teenagers and it made me wish i was watching it wrenna... my favo(u)rite teenager.
i went to the 'london science museum'. after paying 3.30 pounds i realized it's mostly a kids museum. weak. here's a steam powered calculator and some of the pertinent stats. texas instruments is making one the size of a laptop...
and i am DONE with london. on the way to heathrow on the tube.
