New York Interlude: sex and the city

Warning: If you are offended by any references to sex and sex-related activities, including pornography, read no further. This post will offend you.

There, I’m sure that eliminated no one from the reading pool. Ocean is a clean blog, but it would be difficult to keep to its regular standards of innocence and purity and still write in any meaningful way about this day.

Because after a morning of chasing down purse acquisition ideas – all the way down to Herald Square, I decided that I needed to pause for some culturally uplifting experience. So I went to the Museum of Sex.

I had passed this place before and had wondered if it was serious or seedy. I thought no more about it (really), but then, at various junctures, references to it kept cropping up. Like, Time Out Magazine lists it (“gawking is okay; snickering is not”). Gerry Frank’s guide to NY says this about it “the entire affair is a bit tawdry…but crowds are streaming to the place and its first exhibit at least tried very earnestly to take itself seriously.”

I was curious as much about the idea of people coming to a museum to see exhibits about sex as about the exhibits themselves. It becomes fascinating to consider when boundaries are crossed – from a display of porn for art’s sake, to a display of porn for the thrill of displaying porn. I had read that this place crosses over into softcore stuff, avoiding the out and out naughty hardcore porn.

Okay, so now I have a couple of observations:

Am I naïve or what? If, at least in the exhibit about the history of pornographic film, watching a series of flicks where there is absolutely nothing left to the imagination, save, perhaps the smell of it all, if that is not hardcore porn then I really have been using the term incorrectly all my life.

Secondly, I was astonished to see that you could pull this off and not have a bunch of deprived and depraved people basically sitting the afternoon long and enjoying themselves and I don’t mean in the “learning about the history of pornography” way. Perhaps the hefty entrance fee keeps a certain type of person away.

I did also wonder if the guard in the museum got tired of anything to do with sex – sort of like being in a relationship too long to get immediately excited when someone emerges from the bathroom less than fully attired.

The patrons were of mixed ages and groupings, but all were terribly serious, almost scholarly in appearance and demeanor. An older couple, several somewhat artsy-looking single people, groups of friends, all maintaining the dignity and quiet that one generally associates with museums. Except that (unlike in other museums) everyone read the explanation cards and postings very very carefully.

And indeed, it was a fascinating presentation. The photographs from the previous century were especially interesting: graphic and not unlovely, without the trashiness that later came to be associated with these kinds of distributions.

Alright, perhaps this is as far as I should take this post. Picture taking was permitted, but after the first photo or two, I decided that I was appearing like I wanted to take some thrills back home with me and so I put my camera away. I did take two shots: one of magnets in the gift shop (I carefully arranged for decent-ish ones to be visible) and the other of the top part of a quite old photo. You can imagine what the bottom of it is like and why she has that sweet little smile of pleasure on her face.

this may have been the only display in the gift shop tame enough to photograph and post here 

when you let loose all those corsets and layers of skirt, intersting pictures emerged... 

New York Interlude: Can’t trust that day…

So it’s Monday. I'm looking back at the things that occupied my hours (if not my thoughts) today and I've come up with a short list of five:

1. I looked for a summer purse. Anyone who has been to my house lately knows the saga of the summer purse -- I talk freely (and constantly) about it. And if you don’t know the saga of the summer purse, consider yourself lucky. It is the most indescribably boring story on earth, en par with reading a detailed account of the decision-making process involved in choosing the color of towels for your bathroom (spare yourself the tedium there: white always works). Suffice it to say that the summer purse issue remains unresolved.

2. I shopped for a Picasso. An original. To hang in the bedroom. More on this later.

3. I discovered that green and black/gray go well together. See photos below of black-clad park-goers.

4. I went grocery shopping and stood in line that was some 60 people deep at the checkout. Whole Foods is doing well in NY.

5. I read seminar papers.

About the Picasso. It’s brutally simple: I walked over to a small gallery on 79th that was displaying privately owned paintings by Picasso. (I sort of came across it by chance.) Thirteen canvases – none of them familiar to me nor probably to the general public, as most likely they had been hanging in various homes, only now the owners have keeled over and the next generation is lusciously picking through the riches and putting them up for sale in order to rake in some cash.

There were only three people in the gallery: a woman my age but way more polished and coiffed than I and her entourage of two: one gallery rep and one advisor.

The woman was deciding if she should purchase the biggest canvas of the lot – a nice blue and yellow rendition (Ocean perks up here) of people in some macabre poses. It was Picasso’s later work – maybe from the fifties – where the limbs and torsos were beginning to look….distorted.

I hung next to the little party of three (I’m sure they loved that) and listened to the back and forth, having never myself had the problem of laying out millions for a canvas for my bedroom. I was intrigued as to what would be the tipping point.

It seems that the gallery rep hit the right tone. He explained to her that the reason she (rather than me perhaps?) deserved that particular canvas was because she had enough Picassos to make her home a place where you could appreciate the progression of his work. He told her: you have a whole story of the artist… simply replace that painting you have in your bedroom (he knows her bedroom?) with this one (is it fair to the public at large to hide a huge Picasso canvas in a rich lady’s upper-eastside bedroom where presumably only her lovers enter?).

I left before she gave the final nod, but I could tell she was going to go for it. I would have taken a photo of the canvas – the last glimpse of a piece of art that would now be displayed only at the whim of just this one person – but I’ve been scolded so many times now for dangling a camera in private galleries that I no longer bother. It hurts each time.

Fascinating. Spending millions is actually quite easy. It works pretty much the same as handing $3 across the counter for a latte.

Central Park: a mom and her little girl, on a hill. 

Central Park: a stroller, entranced?  

Central Park: two boys in gray 

Central Park: a kiss is just a kiss... 

New Haven Interlude

If I could change the way roles were cast among strangers and friends, I would insist on balance. I would insist that no one gave more, no one gave less of themselves. I would ask that each listened to the other’s requests and, in friendship, gave of her or himself fully, with no excuse, no dishonesty.

I thought of this today as I walked the blocks of New Haven and looked up at the dazzling petals framing the spires and the buildings of Yale.

A Yale date 

A bridge of sighs? a clock? a flower or two, cheering the passerby. 

detail: flowers reaching up to ... a beautiful form 

Spring blooms and foliage almost obliterate an Ivy Tower. 

a recorder tells it like it is: simple and sad 

late afternoon: translucent leaves 

New York Interlude: if you cannot deal with rejection, you might as well pack your bags and go home

Save spontaneity for Madison. Here, in the big league land, you need to have A Plan, and That Plan better be made and hatched early, before you set out.

Last night it did not strike me until significantly into the evening that it would be cool to do something so New Yorkish as to be completely in the realm of the impossible back in Madison. I noted that Mstislav Rostropovich was conducting the NY Philharmonic in a program of Shostakovich and Prokofiev piano concertos. I wanted to be there! Suddenly, I knew, that more than anything, I wanted to lose myself in these works, looking up at a musical giant (how old is he now anyway?), taking it all in the gorgeous space of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

So I called and I begged to have one of the return tickets set aside (there are always at least two or three returns). I literally offered up my wealth and my labors for a chance at a seat. No luck.

In the alternative, I thought I’d walk to the NBC Tower to see if anyone was feeling sick and incapable of sitting through the live performance of SNL. Surely in this weather one person would be feeling sick and miserable enough to hand over their ticket to me. No. Throw up in the aisles why don’t you, but don’t give me your precious ticket. Fine. I wouldn’t either.

Perhaps drowning my disappointment up in the Rainbow Room would be the way to go? I mean, one drink, beautiful view (even if it was foggy, it’s always grand up there) – good plan! Except for the jeans. I hardly ever wear jeans back home (jeans capital of the world). I don’t even typically pack jeans when I go places (well, okay, as a standby for the mountains). But this time, I was on my way to SNL – how jeansy is that? Plus I put on my 70%-off-but-still-a-fortune Cambio jeans (never heard of them? neither have I, but the saleslady at Sassafras said they would put me in with the cooler if not totally coolest set). The elevator man took one look at my dangling from underneath the coat denim and pointed the elevator down, showing me the nearest exit sign.

Okay, plan number 4: stand around and look at Rockefeller Plaza at night. It’s campy. It’s touristy. It’s fun. Except when it is entirely covered by a huge tent for a private wedding function. Who the hell has the cash to rent the entire Rockefeller Plaza for a wedding??

Walking home I thought – there’s always Borders. In Madison, Saturdays are good Borders nights: the store is open, and it may be the only place outside of State Street where there are people mingling about. Take that image back to Madison. The NY Borders closes at 8 on the weekend. Of course. Who wants to sit at Borders when there are exciting things to do like the Philharmonic or SNL?

Of course, sitting at a bar, any old cheesy bar is always an option. Or getting out of the blasted Midtown. Spontaneity is more of a SoHo & Village thing. I should have known better.

Okay, but if I were the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, I’d keep my hands to the side when walking with Rumsfeld.

On why Bush was found walking hand-in-hand with Crown Prince Abdullah at the Crawford Ranch, see NYTimes story here.

New York Interlude: city mice

If you’re a suburban mouse, you have it made: fields of greens, open spaces, and a nice warm spot in a house to nest in for the winter.

But what of city mice? Do they trade in the open spaces, the clean feel of growing things for this?
 

Would they?

How can you mark seasons if you are a downtown kind of a mouse? Sure, there are the strips of land snaking through the boulevards and avenues. Like this one: can’t you tell what season we’re in now?