It's been several weeks since I took the time to write anything. Sorry about that. Let's see...
I saw Billy Elliott on Broadway a few weeks ago. It was a Wednesday matinee, and it was a packed house. There's not anyone famous in the show, but the actor who plays Billy's dad is one of those guys whose face you know even though you don't know his name...The kids were incredible, the dancing was great, especially the number with Billy as a kid and Billy as a grown up. The one drawback was the Merry Christmas Maggie number (the chorus includes the line "we hope you die soon") which seemed to me to be in incredibly bad taste. But I'm now a huge fan of visiting TKTS on Tuesday to see a show on Wednesday afternoon.
I know this is supposed to be about my time in NYC, but one full week since I last wrote was spent in St. Louis, so...After 3 years of preparation, NACAC St. Louis has come and gone. From what I saw of it, the conference went really well. I got to see some of my very favorite people on the planet, too. We had a SLU old-timers' reunion at lunch on Friday.
More of our former colleagues were in town for the conference, but couldn't make it for the lunch. The worst part of the trip was that I got sick, and spent much of the week going to bed early, rather than kicking up my heels as I usually do at this particular event. :(
If you find yourself in St. Louis, be sure to visit the City Museum. It was the site of our social, and it is a super cool place. Very interactive. We climbed, slid down slides, had fish literally eating off of (instead of "out of") our hands.
It feels like little suction cups...
The week after NACAC was spent recovering from the cold from hell. The last week, however, has been great. It's autumn in New York. Sunny, mild, and perfect for exploring the City.
That's actually painted on the side of the building. The building next to it is painted to look like a reflection of it, although the clarity's not great in this photo:
New York doesn't look like that just yet, but it's starting to get there. I spent Friday afternoon in Central Park, reading Wallace Stegner and lying on a rock like a lizard in the sun. Sometimes I wonder if kids go to school here; they all seem to be in the Park in the middle of the day.
View from a rock:
On the way there, I passed by a statue in front of the Time Warner building, completely constructed of stones piled one on top of the other.
Saturday night, I went to Radio City Music Hall to see The Two Towers. The film score was performed live by the 21st Century Orchestra. A full choir, along with a soprano and boy soprano, accompanied the symphony. I couldn't pay Eddie to go to something like that, so I went by myself. I'm glad I did. The experience was unlike anything I've ever attended, and I was surrounded by LOTR nerds. They cheered every time a new character came onto the screen. They cheered when the good guys won a battle or a fight. They clapped at the end of every solo. They screamed "Gandalf!" at the screen when he reappeared as the White Wizard. One guy even dressed up as Frodo. In the beginning, I was annoyed, but it got really funny by the end...
Today was my first Art History lecture at the Met. (I missed the first one last week when I was sick.) The professor is interesting and witty, and it's not overwhelming in its scope. I'm glad I signed up. After the lecture (pre-Raphaelites, Realists, Moroccan embroidery, Thai architecture, Native American art, and the architecture of the White House and the Capitol Building), I went exploring in the Greek and Roman antiquities section. Lots and lots of pottery and statuary. A funerary stele (is that the right way to say that?) of a young girl saying good bye to her doves from 450 B.C.:
I meant to stay with the Greeks and Romans, but I stumbled onto an exhibition on Miro in a side room, showing paintings that resulted from a stay in the Netherlands, as well as the Jan Steen paintings that inspired them. On one wall, a copy of two of the paintings hung side by side, one Steen and one Miro, along with labels showing the similarities between the two. (Ears, dogs, mustaches, chairs, tapestries, a lute) Seeing it displayed that way allowed me to understand what I'm seeing in a Miro painting much better than I ever had before. (No photography allowed, so I can't show you what I mean...) And having an abstract (surreal?) painting hanging next to a realistic one, both of which have the same subject matter, was fascinating.
On my way across the Park on the way home, I got a good view of Big Bambu as it arises from the roof of the Met. I think it's almost complete...
Lots of travel and guests coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Philly and DC, and we have 3 sets of house guests between now and the end of the month. I can't wait! Of course, I probably won't get around to writing much as a result...
