The Guggenheim

The Guggenheim is a modern-art museum located on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, towards the southern end of Museum Mile.  The museum itself sits at 88th and 5th Ave, just south of the Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design and just a few blocks north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Museum of the City of New York

The Museum of the City of New York is located at the north end of the so-called Museum Mile, a mile-long stretch of 5th Avenue that runs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 82nd to El Museo del Barrio at 104th.  The MCNY itself is located at 103rd Street, accessible by the M1 bus, the 123 subway line, or via short walk from the Harlem 125th Street Metro North train station.

Sunday Morning's Favorite Stuff

It's slim pickings on the inter-webs this morning, but there are a few little things worth sharing.

Action #marvel #lola #agentsofshield

A photo posted by Евгений Шмидт (@ottoschmidt) on Dec 6, 2015 at 1:39am PST

Sunday Odds & Ends...

PHOTO GALLEY: #ArmyWestPoint v Penn State, 10/3/15 http://t.co/DzKuEogTtu #ArmyFootball #ARMYvsPSU #collegefootball pic.twitter.com/Fpr9ZWdvmB

— Pat Tewey Photos (@p2ephotos) October 4, 2015

These are really terrific.

Frankenstein

Sally and I attended our first Coastal Connecticut Arts Guild meeting as a couple last night. I don't much think of myself as an "artist", but Sally considers my writing to be art, and I enjoyed the meeting. We spent some time talking about guild business, discussing ways to get our various works out there as well as potential community projects that the guild is considering, and I thought most of that was great. Then one of the new guild members started showing some of his sculpture, and things really got interesting.

Five Things on a Friday: Skyscrapers, Checks & Balances, and a Butt

I’m out of the hospital and ready to go!

If you were wondering, no, I definitely do not recommend “flesh-eating antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection brought on by spider bite” as a way to miss a week of work.  My advice is to just suck it  up and use a week’s vacation.  The folks at Bridgeport Hospital were great, but honestly, I hope I never have to go back.

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1.  College football 2014 preview: 5 predictions (SILive.Com)

“The SEC still has the best league in college football. But the best teams this year may be Oregon and Florida State.”

Saturday Stuff: Thank God for the BBC

Not much going on outside the BBC's Twitter feed.  But thankfully, @BBCWorld has saved me

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V.A.’s Acting Chief: West Point Graduate and Ex-Leader of U.S.O. (NYT)
"The man who is tem­porar­i­ly re­plac­ing Er­ic Shin­se­ki as sec­re­tary of vet­er­ans af­fairs is a West Point grad­u­ate, a one­time banker and a for­mer chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Unit­ed Ser­vice Or­ga­ni­za­tions (known to most Amer­i­cans as the U.S.O.) who joined the De­part­ment of Vet­er­ans Af­fairs just three months ago...

Art and the Artist: Pictures from Sally's Art Show

If you read our Christmas letter this year, then you already know that Sally started a small business last year called "Art and the Artist" in which she teaches art to kids out of our basement.  She teaches several different classes, and they don't all use the same methodology, but typically, she reads a story to the kids and then has them put together a piece in the style of the artist, using appropriate materials and methods.

The point is not so much to teach the kids art as it is to teach them how to use different tools and techniques to help them develop their fine motor skills and their appreciation for the use of various media.  But as the kids get older, the challenges get more significant, and indeed, a few of the pieces that Sally had on display were, I thought, very good.

Anyway, she held the event at Roger Salls Photography here in Stratford, and I thought it went very, very well.

Sunset at Montmajour

The New York Times yesterday reported that a museum in Europe just announced that it has found a new, previously-undiscovered Van Gogh called Sunset at Montmajour. 

Sally's Art Show

My wife held her first annual art show for the kids she teaches in her class, Art and the Artist.  I took some pictures of the show and of some of my favorite pieces.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think Sally is a terrific art teacher, and some of her kids have real talent. 

My daughter Hannah did this one.  I told her it looked like a Matisse.

Hannah also did this one, called Two Mountains.

A very talented little girl named Abigail did this one.

Abigail also did this one, called The Four Limes.  I thought it was
the best piece in the show.

A 3-year-old did this one.  I loved it.

My daughter Emma did this one, based on a Dr. Seuss piece.

Friday Mad Science: Ai Weiwei and the Twenty-Nine-Year-Old Virgin

I can find nothing of interest in the news that I consider to be real news, so this week we’re gonna look at a bunch of stuff that definitely is not news.  It all comes from Slate because, well, Slate is an interesting site where a bunch snotty NYC liberals write about topics that they don’t understand.  Needless to say, I love it and read it daily.

All I'm saying is... it's a shame.

So, let’s get started…

Lori “Lolo” Jones is a twenty-nine-year-old virgin!  She’s also a champion Olympic hurdler.  All I can really say about that is that it’s a damn shame.  I’m afraid Ms. Jones has built the act into something that it isn’t; withthat much build up, she’s bound to be disappointed if and when she ever actually participates.

I also don’t understand why she hasn’t simply gotten married.  Someone that pretty and that successful must have had at least a couple of would-be suitors with something on the ball.

Ai Weiwei is my new favorite Chinese artist.  I have no idea why the PRC’s government is watching him, and I don’t care.  His Animal Heads/Chinese Zodiac sculptures were awesome.  They’re currently on display at theHirshhorn.

The Dragon from Animal Heads/Chinese Zodiac by Ai Weiwei.

 Hulu is also awesome, and the companies that own it wish that it wasn’t.  That’s not news.  What’s weird is that Hulu’s awesomeness is a problem.  And the problem is, specifically, that online ad rates are lower than regular TV ad rates, which is weird because online ads can’t be skipped on Hulu whereas almost no one actually watches regular TV ads.  Someone needs to explain that to me.  I think the truth here is that all advertising is effective, but it’s nowhere near as effective as TV networks would like their advertisers to believe.  And the problem is that you can quantify that pretty easily with online ads whereas with regular TV, there’s no way to prove ineffectiveness, leading corporations to live in the beautiful glow of their own self-destructive illusions.  Given how the management’s pay structures are built on the ongoing illusion of success, one can easily see why illusory success is more appealing in modern America than real, quantifiable statistics are.

Finally, I’m tired of hearing about Alan Moore’s take on the things DC Comics has done with The Watchman.  Bottom line, Moore sold his rights, he received and accepted the money offered, and the property changed hands.  If he wanted the rights back after a definite time period, he should have either specified that in his initial contract or been prepared to offer a market rate for the rights’ current value after the sale.  His argument now is akin to me selling you my house and then getting mad when you repaint it because I’d assumed that the bank was going to foreclose on your mortgage, and I’d therefore been planning to buy it back at well below market price, and your new color scheme is outside of my vision for the house’s decor.  And I’m VERY MAD ABOUT IT!!! 

I mean, all of that may be true, but once you own the house, it’s yours, and my assumptions about how your ownership is going to go are totally irrelevant.  Moreover, Moore’s assumption that DC Comics would stop printing his life’s masterwork and simply give it back was ludicrous on its face. 

And… that’s all I’ve got.  See?   I told you none of it was even moderately important.

Dark Green Curve I

Dark Green Curve I is an example of the kind of thing we saw at the Hirshhorn that I really liked but that my wife Sally hated.

The point of the piece is that it confounds expectations. A painting is supposed to be about something; Dark Green Curve I isn’t about anything; it’s just a big, uniformly green space of canvas. Moreover, a painting is supposed to be square. Dark Green Curve I is a weird polygon, and it isn’t even straight. Art isn’t about what you expect; it’s about pushing you to expand your conceptions. This piece does that very effectively to me. I also think it’s beautiful.

Sally said, “That’s art? It’s just a big piece of green canvas. Anybody could do that!”

But they didn’t. And that’s the point.