A melancholy coin purse...David Sedaris reading and signing at B&N

The great thing about this blog is that it’s really put me in an up-for-whatever mindset when it comes to NYC—it hasn’t just forced me to plan to do something cool every week or so, it's affected my whole outlook. So when my cousin mentioned that one of our favorite authors, David Sedaris, would be reading from his new book at the Union Square Barnes & Noble, my response was an obvious Let's Go! A few months ago, even without work in the morning and in even in warmer temperatures, I might have been lazier and less willing, but this week, it was a no-brainer.

For those of you who don’t know any of Sedaris’ work, he is HILARIOUS. Most of his books are full of anecdotes from his life, all recounted in the wittiest, most sarcastic, self-deprecating, amazing writing. I have to confess I have only read two of his books thus far, but there has never been a dull moment in either one (and I have one holiday-themed book on deck for December + I’ve just purchased his new book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, to start ASAP). I sort of have reading ADD, I think right now I’m in the middle of four books. Woops! I like to keep it interesting :)

Anyway, my first Sedaris book was, I think his most well-known, Me Talk Pretty One Day. It is a hilarious recounting of two major parts of his life, one being his childhood, which is particularly relevant to me because he grew up in Raleigh (near Duke) and his dad’s side of the family is Greek (like mine!). But it’s not just the personal relevance that makes it great, it’s the stories. Everyone has a bit of a wacky family, probably not nearly as crazy as Sedaris’, but you’ll love reading stories about cooky family members with weird habits and personalities. In my favorite (slash preference of the two), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, I literally laughed out loud the whole time. Just wait for Christmastime--I’ve already planned to transcribe my favorite passage from the book (about Santa Claus). But to give you an idea, I’ll try to find something indicative of his writing style and subject matter that I can type up right now. Seriously, I recommend his books: easy, entertaining reads that will make you laugh out loud.

Excerpt: So this is a piece from Me Talk Pretty One Day and it is one of those relevant-to-me stories, but I suspect that a lot of my friends are familiar with the customs described as well, so I figured I’d go for it.

“As Greeks, we had our own Easter, which was usually observed anywhere form two to four weeks after what was known in our circle as “the American version.” The reason has to do with the moon or the Orthodox calendar—something mysterious like that—though our mother always suspected it was scheduled at a later date so that the Greeks could buy their marshmallow chicks and plastic grass at drastically reduced sale prices. “The cheap sons of bitches,” she’d say. “If they had their way, we’d be celebrating Christmas in the middle of goddamn February.” …

“In the evening we had the traditional Greek meal followed by a game in which we would toast one another with blood-colored eggs. The symbolism escapes me, but the holder of the table’s one uncracked egg was supposedly rewarded with a year of good luck. I won only once. It was the year my mother died, my apartment got broken into, and I was taken to the emergency room suffering from what the attending physician diagnosed as “house-wife’s knee.””

I promise the books do nottt focus on him being Greek, he’s not even REALLY Greek…I just happened to have this passage underlined and it was easy to find and is funny (I think so anyway!). Trust me, I didn’t note any other Greeks in the massive crowd on Monday. I’m telling you. He rocks. But anyway, that’s the end of me plugging Sedaris.

The point of this post is to tell you about the reading and let you know about other great events going on at Barnes and Noble. We clearly underestimated Sedaris’ popularity, to say the least. We got there 15 minutes early, thinking we even had time to look around the store, but once we got the fourth floor, where the reading was, it was a major shock. The entire floor was PACKED. They had set up maybe 250 chairs, which were completely full, and the back half of the store consisted of crowds of people standing in between bookshelves…we were mushed in there. Of course it doesn’t really matter how close you are since you are just listening, but I would recommend getting there an hour early if you even want to consider a chair, but still no guarantees. The reading was great, hilarious of course. Sedaris read a bit from his new book, then shared some funny notes from his personal diary and answered some questions, all for about 45 minutes. Afterwards we got on line to get our books signed and have a minute with the great author. Unfortunately, even though he apparently signed for an hour and a half before the reading, there were still at least a hundred people waiting afterwards. And after almost two hours of waiting, we finally bailed. We figured it would have been about another hour and hunger pains were kicking in. So again, if getting your book signed by the author is really important to you…go early! 

There are some cool author and artist events going on in the next few months at various B&Ns around the city. I'll list some of them that I thought would be interesting/fun, there’s really something for everyone… 

- For the more politically inclined: The author of Game Change, a NYT bestseller on the 2008 presidential election will discuss his book and The author of the Bill Clinton biography A Complicated Man, will discuss his book (both this Friday!!)

- For sports fans: Sportscaster and former Giants kicker Pat Summerall will discuss his book about the Giants and coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry

- For the musicians out there: Various musical events (like jazz, broadway songs, or tributes to certain artists—Beatles this Thurs!), with CD signing, and some actual dance performances (ballet in barnes and noble? I mean I’d like to see that…)

- For the jokesters: Steve Martin will be here later this month to discuss his recent fiction book (who knew he was an author??)

- For the pop-culture obsessed: The Kardashian sisters (Nov 30) will be discussing I guess themselves and their book…about themselves. Sounds awesome!!

There’s just so much variety…and it’s free! Definitely check out this link to see more.  You can search by store or author/artist or type of event—very user-friendly. This is just another really great, different, entertaining thing to do in this awesome city. Take advantage of it!! 

Happy Sedaris Reading!!

- The Wandering New Yorker

An "Intellect-Tickling" Day at the New Museum

Finally…a real post! And a museum post! Woohoo! Actually don’t get too excited, this is probably going to be one of the few museum visits for me, at least art museums. I’m confident enough in my general intelligence to admit that I’m not really intellectual enough for contemporary and modern art. Science museums though, I’m all over that. (There is a seriously cool exhibit coming up at the AMNH this month that you will SURELY hear about) But anyway, I still enjoy the ~25% of art museums that I understand. And I was really interested in checking out the New Museum after I got a Groupon email about it. I was initially drawn to the picture of the museum’s exterior--it’s a really great piece of art in itself: a stack of different sized boxes shifted around a central axis. It’s like a modern leaning tower of Pisa! Sort of. So I went on to read the description, which said the museum "showcases intellect-tickling contemporary art from adventurous artists," and I though...Alright, I'm down with some tickling of the intellect on a Sunday afternoon.

The museum is down in the Bowery and very easy to pick out on a street with few modern buildings. As I said, a lot of the pieces were over my head, but the ones I did understand, I was totally into. So I’m going to recap what was most memorable of what my feeble engineering mind could grasp.

The ground floor has a fun little exhibit called “Voice and Wind” and is referred to as a “meditative installation”, where the artist uses venetian blinds and scent atomizers that hang from the ceiling as “sensorial stimuli infusing the installation with subtle tactile and olfactory experiences that call upon the visitor’s subjectivity as a key element in the meaning of the work.” << Kinda heavy right? Well to me it was a fun colorful maze where you can walk up to the fan devices and guess the scents coming from each one, lots of earthy aromas. Ask the guard what they are when you’re done to see how you do! We got most of ‘em :) It was fun. Interactive is ALWAYS fun. I’m not so sure what I learned though…

The exhibit I was most excited for was “Free”, which is built upon the idea of free culture, “a social movement that acknowledges the revolution the internet has caused in industries like music and print publishing, and argues that it be dealt with as an opportunity for creating, sharing and distribution of knowledge, rather than a threat.” So the artists are all exploring how people and society have changed with the expansion of the public space and how they’ve adjusted to a world where information is so easily accessible. As I’ve been looking into digital media and marketing as a career path, I’ve been learning a lot about how growth in the digital space has really affected the way the whole world works. (I’m currently reading Googled, the story of google…and it really puts the massive disruptive effect of their creations into perspective. Very cool story if you’ve got the time, but warning: there is a lot of detail in there.) So since this has been at the forefront of my intellectual and professional curiosity recently, I was pumped.

I’ll talk about my favorite piece: 19:30. I really LOVED this display, by a Yugoslavian woman who wanted to show how (and this is in the simplest terms, must check it out for the full effect), prior to the expansion of the internet into the country--which happened to occur simultaneously with the collapse of socialism--the 8:30pm (or 19:30) news was considered a “unifying social norm,” since the whole country would sit down to view the broadcast. But as the country fell apart and internet access allowed people to get their news at any time, this unifying event disappeared. Then in the ‘90s, electronic dance music came into popularity and young people would gather in these huge groups to basically get down and rave. The message of the piece is that: when information can be accessed at any time, the nightly news loses its power to unite a large group, but a live event like a rave, can still bring large groups together. To show this, the artist has a projection of two parallel screens, the left showing news broadcasts and the right showing videos of Yugoslavians dancing and raving, with perfectly coordinated typical “news music” combined with techno-electronica music in the background. I recorded a short clip of the action to give you an idea (and introduce some video into the blog), but it really does not do the display justice. I came back twice to listen to techno and watch the globes rotating and news broadcasters at the same time as crazy raving with smoke and lasers. The music really fit perfectly and I thought the message was pretty cool. Access to the internet completely changed routine.

The main exhibit right now, which takes up 3 floors of the museum, is the “Last Newspaper” which explores the "ways artists approach the news and respond to the stories and images that command the headlines." This is a pretty broad concept so there were a lot of different types of pieces in the exhibit.

One of the more memorable pieces, “Eulogies to One and Another” compares the news coverage of two coworkers involved in a car bombing in Iraq. An American woman and Iraqi man who worked with a non-profit in Iraq, both died in the car bombing, but received very different levels of remembrance in the press. These two pictures show the same news articles, the first set of frames highlights all of the news surrounding the deaths, but the second set highlights only the statements about to the Iraqi man killed in the bombing. You can see that the frames are almost empty in this set. Pretty sad. I mean there is something to say about the fact that American and UK news sources would be more interested in the death of an American than an Iraqi, but the difference in degree of mention of the American and Iraqi in all of the news articles is pretty drastic. It was just kind of a “wow” moment. Click the pics to enlarge and get a better idea.  

Also there was a particularly disturbing display, of which you will not get the full effect if you don’t read the description. On first glance you see about 8 newspaper covers with pictures of Saddam Hussein with statements that chronicle his downfall, all covered with splatters of glitter. So I’m thinking ok…this is some sort of “I hate Sadaam” display…covering his face with paint, that happens to have glitter in it? As I was standing there eyeing the papers, searching deep inside my head for something really intellectual, my museum buddy goes “OH GROSS” and tells me I have to read the description. It’s jizz, people. Yea, semen. The artist has ejaculated onto the newspapers and then sprinkled them with glitter to show his "response to the hysterical headlines and comment on the brutally transient nature of celebrity." ...I don't know what to say...way to really stick it to Saddam, buddy...?

So if all of the intellectual art has drained you, once you're done you can kick up your blood-sugar levels with a delicious Birdbath by City Bakery chocolate chip cookie and a coffee! Everyone knows it’s tiring to walk around a museum all day, so a cookie and a coffee and a little bit of rest for your feet is a perfect end to a great day. That cookie was clutch. (Somehow even when the post/activity has nothing to do with food I manage to find a way to bring it in haha…)

There is SO much in this museum that I didn’t even begin to touch on. Check the “Pics from my Trips” on the sidebar to the right to see some more pictures from my visit. And I definitely recommend the New Museum if you want an intellectual afternoon complete with some eye-opening moments (and a cookie on top).


- The Wandering New Yorker

Halloween pictures to to distract you from my negligence!

I have to seriously apologize for my lack in posts in the last 10 days. As they say, finding a job is a full time job, and when you throw Halloween preparations into the picture, the days get so full it's hard to find time to sit and concentrate on a post. So...yea it's still not ready (it's coming!) but I thought I would distract/entertain you with some pictures of my Halloween arts and crafts creations...Enjoy :)

^^ I carved this baby free hand (which you can prob tell from the asymmetry). Isn't it scary? You can find it on a third floor fire escape on 2nd ave between 34th and 35th street (if it hasn't been tossed yet).

Down here is my Halloween costume. Sandy is Uncle Pennybags (aka the Monopoly Guy) in jail and I'm the Community Chest GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card. Aren't we cute? :D I'm really into home-made costumes and also being inanimate objects (last year I was a Duff Beer and Sandy was Duff-Man -- ilovethesimpsons). Click the pics to see my masterpieces in more detail.

Here's what went into these badboys:

1. Trip to target to purchase everything they have in mustard yellow (turns out they have a lot, I was deciding between a nice little cardigan and this tee shirt)

2. Mixing fingerpaint colors to get mustard yellow. (For some reason I thought I would get mustard by mixing yellow and green. That was a mistake and took a lot of yellow to correct!)

3. Cutting out poster board and paint with a sponge because I had no paintbrush.

4. Spending several hours copying a community chest card and in jail space onto giant sized posterboard. Yep I drew that all freehand slash with a ruler. Not super easy, esp since I'm no artist haha. My roommate can attest to the fact that it involved a lot of erasing pencil lines until it was acceptable. Also she colored in the black on the community chest and the orange on the 'in jail' piece to give me a break. Thanks Er!

5. Finishing touches like fastening and wearing monopoly pieces as jewelry :) Oh and this heinous color on my fingernails...I have to remember to take this off ASAP. 

6. Sandy spending 15 mins in Rickys to get a prisoner jumpsuit, hat and 'stache (that lasted about 10 mins and was ripped off shortly after this photo).   

7. Special thanks to my grandma for lending me one of her canes for Uncle Pennybags :) Good thing she has like ten of them...

Anyway, hope that was entertaining enough to redeem myself for being negligent to the blog. I promise the New Museum post will come soon, hopefully before they change the exhibits!! 

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!!! I did!

BOO

- The Wandering New Yorker