Sunday, April 12, 2015

My 180 Bites on Big Apple - Chapter 2 – The Turbulent Impact of Artistic Expression

Chapter 2 – The Turbulent Impact of Artistic Expression


A lot of people find places like the nature, spa or Bali, to go to relax and get their lives together. But to me, my spiritual Mecca is New York City. It’d come as a surprise that actually the air in New York ain’t that bad. And to a depressed, oppressed software geek like me that’s totally obsessed with art, what’s more can a person ask for besides the cultural Epic center of America.
From the South to the North, there’s countless museums, those concert halls, from Carnegie Hall to Lincoln Center, the definition of fine art and music and the very popular Broadway, where can you find more live drama and musical that very well define an artist’s very craft as an actor? There’s no retake, all on the spot, live.
If you are tired and bored by the hustle and bustle of the city, just climb up a rock in Central Park and you’ll find your oasis of silent.
Well, everyone now would have to at least once go to the 911 Memorial Museum. For a person, coming from a no-war country, we need to be a lot more sensitive about the situation than others. Although I did become depressed due to the event even when I’m not in New York at the time, it doesn’t make it right for me to claim it at what I experienced. 911 changed the world, and it has redefined New York City. It’s forever a scar to many New Yorker. While I could celebrate my victory over my own depression, I still have many friends that have till this day unable to go any further south than the 1st Street. We should remember everyone of what has been lost that very fateful day. Pay our respect to those who have fallen. It is not a tourist site. It is the monument that reminds us all to never forget.
2014 mark the reopening of a lot of the train station and building at the area. Rebuilding is still going on, but most of the building is done, and I have the privilege of watching the New Tower One slowly being covered by glass panel, and attend it’s opening. I do hope that it marks the rise of the phoenix and a New Era of Hope.

Well, when you are in New York, there’re 2 museums that corner the 2 sides of Central Park like a belt on its waist. One is the very definition of art itself, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the other, with the world famous, fame of the movie Night At The Museum, American Museum of Natural History.
There’s something about these 2 museums that all people should know. If you don’t like art or Sceince, then try not to go to these museums, cause these 2 of the largest museums in New York, will take up to 8 hours to finish, by luck that is, so it will be a really long yawn for the uninterested.
As for those that really enjoy Art, there’s the Monet ever so mesmerizing Lily Pond, Rambrandt haunting portrait, Renoir lively people, and of course the psychedelically dreamy Starry Night from Van Gogh, all the dark medieval armor and lifelike cheselicious roman statue you can look at and one of the largest Egyptian artifacts collection in the United States. And a very fortunate me, due to the Fashion Week Season, also get to see some of the most amazing costumes ever created in our time scanned and recreated frame by frame in digital glory. Of course if you are interested, there’s also a fairly LARGE collection of Asian Buddha Statue and porcelain. Imagine these, a mile long and half a mile wide of hall space, a whole floor, filled with paintings, then the same area, filled with statue and artifacts, and then another filled with parts of buildings and pillars and statues. And that is only half of what they have. So if you really need time to closely admire the work of artists, it’s cost less to buy a membership that allow you limitless access for the whole year.

There is however a side track moment whenever you visit the Metropolitan, because they have a second museum at the Cloister Castle where they house some of the medieval era artifacts and Christian’s art. Overseeing the Hudson river atop the Fort Tryon Park in the Washington Heights is a marvelous sight to behold of to another side of the city too.


Right across the Park, is the American Museum of Natural History, that is to say it mildly, cause it is more than 2 mile long walk to cross Central Park. But if you are also a Science Geek like me, AMNH is also a magnificent Monument of Science. There you go the very definition of New York City, Art and Science, all Gather in the same city. While many is coming into AMNH for Dumb Dumb or the Tyrannosaurus Skeleton, the Skeleton at the Lobby is much more magnificent than the one in the movies, and there are plenty of Dinosaurs Skeletons in the Fossil area. There’s a lot of stuff animals, plenty of wax statue. The section where we can learn about human evolution, plant, the Giant Whale hanging on the roof of the sea life, the ultimate Solar system Model in the Planetarium section, with 2 amazing theater to recreate the creation of Planet and Stars and the Big Bang. If you really like walking through time, this is the place to be.

Of course besides these 2 museums there are plenty of museum that’s worth visiting, like the Museum of Modern Art. There’s 2 reason to visit MoMA, that is because it houses one of the largest collection Warhol, and the Second is the fact that it is the museum that define what the modern transcending art form should feel like for all the current trendsetter to understand where we are in art and where they should walk to. It is a huge differentiation from the classics that is housed in Metropolitan, it’s like those are the basics, and this is the advanced future course. Of course to walk through 50’s to 90’s you can’t avoid from all the display of sexual liberation and freedom of expression era that surprisingly seem extreme to current time. Have we actually gone backwards? Or the resistance to the obscenity of such display have actually won after so many years?
Well, it is advised that parents should be prepared to explain what and why are those pictures or paintings called art to their young child. And a lot of time it seems like you are in the twilight zone, because modern art means a lot of photography, projected image, basic forms, and walking through things that’s from a recent past or future not far from now, glued together to become statue or those funny time when everyone is staring right into the abyss of a all white only or all black only painting and contemplate why it cost 300 thousand haha!

Another great museum that the building itself is an art piece is the Guggenheim Museum, which is a right a cross the same street the Metropolitan is on, cross the 5th Avenue and go a few block north (actually 5th Ave is the definition of Museum’s avenue), you’ll come to surprisingly round and huge Guggenheim. The museum is the easiest to navigate inside, there’s a round ramp that just goes around and up the building, each level maintain an exhibition hall, and the most recent main exhibition is in the center mostly hanging and on the ramp itself. And the Hall on the highest level is for performance art. It is without a doubt that Guggenheim houses the largest collection of cubism like Picasso, Braque and Chagall, the lesser-known Van Gogh painting and the illogically rambling of a Pollock, The Guggenheim collection is smaller and much more concentrated, it’s like a private collection version of Metropolitan and MoMA combined.

I always love to walk the museum row on the Upper East Side, there’s plenty of museum about and some of the best and luxury café in those museums. One of them is Café Sabarsky in the Neue Gallery. Yes, 35 dollars for a few pieces of cake and a pop of latte is a bit too much. But they make the best macchiato ever. And seriously the dessert is heavenly. The café retain it’s grand wooden wall and the high ceiling that the is typical of an Upper East Side building with spiral stair cases. While usually I was there for the coffee, there’s the occasional collection exhibition that I really love about the place. As usual, I walk the Central Park East length of the 5 Avenue to Neue Galerie to grab an after lunch nibble, and Café, and do my “light” reading. And they have a private collection of Gustav Klimt. The centrepiece of the Austrian’s painter collections of course is the famous The Woman In Gold, a breathtaking 1907 gold leaf painting. There’s a great story behind the painting, Maria Altmann family was Austrian Jews, during the World War, the painting were confiscated by the Nazi and returned to their owner or government after the war ended, Austrian Government never return the painting to the Altmann and Maria started fighting for the ownership when she is 82. Maria won the case against the Austrian Government, the painting were brought to the United States in 2006 after 8 years. It was then sold to Ronald S. Lauder, the heir to Estée Lauder with condition that it will be put on permanent display in his Neue Galerie. So everyone who came to the galerie will forever be reminded to do what’s right. The Woman in Gold really is a masterpiece on it’s own, and probably worth the 100 million dollar because of the way that the gold leaf is laid to lift the three dimensional effect, and further amplifying the paleness of the lady under the shimmering umbrella. It is magnificent to behold in real life indeed. And it is one in a billion unique.
Surely when you are in America, you got to see some American Art, one thing that is all over the city is Jeff Koons sculpture, this year they erected a whole Jeff Koons Cow in Rockefeller Center and they also decided to have a whole Jeff Koons Collection in the Whitney Museum of American Art. Whitney is not a huge building, but every piece of it is designed to display art. And to see Warhol and Jeff Koons work in it’s original forms is amazing. Again to all parent, it is modern art after all so walk with caution. There’s a lot to explain why something without cloth and wee wee dangling out is supposed to be art. But if you really want to get a feel of the real world of modern art this is the very definition of it. We go from all the balloon sculpture, from giant to the tiny and the earlier work of expression in modern erotic photography to the later heavy cooper and metal work. You might get a big pile of colorful manure and you would think this is art. There’s no doubt that this is genius and bold. And I often think with every significant artists cornering ever few segment of art original dimension, what’s left to be created can be called original these days. And how far deep do we need to dig to get there.

One more amazing thing about the East of Central Park is that both the Zoo entrance and the Jackie Onassis Reservoir are just a cross the avenue. Central Park, means more to everyone in the City than anything. It is the very place where you can get fresh air, the one place where you can get away from all the people and tourist, have a walk or sit on a bench and not be bothered. You’ll never get tired in it, it is the reminder to get fit. And the reservoir is also the single largest empty spaces to let you eyes have a bit of a wider horizon. It is the very place that makes it makes sense, how people, rich or poor, can live in the over-crowded city, and find balance. Of course all the love movie scene shot here that brings back all the nostalgic memory doesn’t hurt. It is a strange feeling though, before I come to NYC, what’s in the movie is so far away, then when you are here, all of the movie’s seem to be in New York City one way or another. And sometimes when you walk out you are on the very place where story in the movie just were. It does make it feels like you are in a movie wonderland of sort. The most beautiful time of the year for Central Park was in the Autumn sunset, where all the trees have changed colors and colored the city with brilliant red and orange and green and blue, with roads and the trees form a dance of light and shadow, the soft caresses of the cool wind, beg for lovers to cuddle and kisses. They say spring is the season of love, in Central Park it is the Autumn. Well, when you are in central park you know that no one owns the city, the park alone stands 4 blocks wide and over 50 blocks length. You can’t get everything at the same time. In the autumn the best place to sit and marvel at the city most precious jewel is at Loeb Boathouse, right on the edge of the lake over looking the tree line to all the skyscraper of 59th Street and beyond. It is the best description of Park in the City.
And in the Summer, you get all the perks in the park, free concert, free movies on the grass, all the sports activity. One place that everyone herded over is the Sheeps Meadow. Even if you are not a people person, the meadow is vast enough for anyone to find a spot to just lie down and be yourself, sunburn and all.
Of course as one of the city with permanent theatre fixture, such summer entertainment doesn’t escape from the Park. There’s a round wooden open air theater in the park near the castle that’s Called Shakespeare in the Park, as the name suggested there’s free Shakespeare to be enjoyed, which is most suitably.
I’ve only got in once, because the line to getting the free tickets is usually several miles long and people would line up since the early morning before the sun rises. The show that I went to is King Lear, don’t you think that since it’s free that the production is not worth watching, the cast usually are great actor and actresses mix with new comers. King Lear is cast with John Lithgow and Annette Bening, both are Oscar nominated, and John Lithgow is also twice Tony Winner. And I believe the only reason I got the ticket is because that the weather forecast the storm was approaching that night, the few days of rain that I’ve experience in New York really. However, the forecast is right, it rains heavily that night, but it is a sunny enough day, so a little bit of rain wasn’t too bad. But it does beg to show to stop for a while for fear of the electrocution from the equipment. But we stayed and it might be the best King Lear ever. Because the rain came the second time when it was at the scene when King Lear gone main in the woods on a stormy night, with God have made the most suitable add in to the most dramatic scene ever of the whole play ever.

We shall discuss more about the Theater on my next chapter.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

My 180 Bites on Big Apple - Chapter 1 - My Introduction to New York City

My 180 Bites on Big Apple

Chapter 1


My Introduction to New York City
                                                               
It’s the summer of 2014, everything is going as planned. I have a great life is Malaysia, but there’s a feeling that a part of me is loss. So, I’ve decided to leave my steady job of 10 years, in search of that one piece of Hocrux that I’ve lost some where in the world.

I am a lucky SOB. I’ve been to every continent around the world, except for North and South America. An old friend of mine, Bernard called right before I was about to leave my job and not thinking about doing anything… He said his apartment, that’s smacked right in the middle of Manhattan have a space for rent. And I just said: “Yes! Why Not!” and just like that the planning begun. And believe me, even I don’t believe how well it’s been. I’ve bought the plane tickets, transfer the money to his account, and packed my home for the past 10 years and send everything back to my home town house in 2 weeks time. One thing I didn’t manage to do well is saying goodbye to everyone. Though I did not feel it, but it seems like everyone around me felt that I’ve left in a hurry. In one month, the decision is made and I’m gone with the wind as they said.
I got air in my lungs and money in my pockets; I’m well prepared for this great adventure of mine. Besides, my brother is 5000 miles down south what could go wrong?! Haha!
And without a second glance backward, I jump on a train to the airport, hop on a flight with my 2 GIGANTIC luggage and started my journey from Asia to America. I’m a bred and born tough Asian, seen the worst and the best of everything, I’m ready.
Oh! 24 hours is a long ass flight. Seriously, even with that 6 hours stop in Shanghai… which, mind me, the food is fantastic, but the flight is too damn long.

Anyhow, 1 and a half day later, still the same day in New York City as the day I fly away, I’ve reached JFK. The line at the custom is short, and the officer didn’t even glance at me as he stamped the 6 months pass onto my passport. As I look at it I thought, well, I guess my 3 months stint just turn into half a year. Anyway, it’s a bit confusing finding the truck I’ve pre-ordered online. The email says find the counter at the gate, but all I can see is some travel agency. So I went outside and saw the trucks of the company parked outside but no driver in it. So I drag my sorry ass and the 2 damn heavy luggage back inside. Not happy that I still have to wait after such a long flight. Anyway, finally the driver came and asked me to get a ticket with my booking statement. And then I’m good to go, that’s not before he picked up another 4 person at the other 5 gates, which is like totally confusing for me, cause he drove me to every single terminal of JFK. My luck I guess, at least now I know how many terminal that JFK have. I’m not angry; I’m far too excited to be angry. I have expected the notorious traffic from JFK to the city, so no biggie, just have some chat with the Spanish lady and the fashion writer sitting in the same truck with me, and brush up on my half broken English with them, who speak as half broken an English as I.

I’d never thought I’d be in New York City during the summer. Reason be that I come from the country on the Equator, you know, years of 365 days 24/7 of sunny hot weather is enough for me. I want something cold…. But to my surprise this year New York don’t really have a really hot one.
So the truck slowly creeps through Jamaica Center and they we reach the Unisphere of Flushing and over the Williamsburg, seriously I like the steel structure… exactly like how I imagine I’d be going into Manhattan like in the movies, and make a right to the neighborhood that’s gonna be my home for the next 6 months.
As the truck pulls up at the apartment, Bernard is already waiting outside, the security is tight here, and we need the key card to get through the door, and there we go to the apartment and have everything settle. It’s already deep into the twilight of the evening, and my friend actually had a date with some friends. So I wandered around the area, walk down the East River promenade, with some jazz band playing at the back, enjoying the sun setting on to the Pepsi-Cola sign, watching the sail boats and water way plane docking at the pier. And before I knew it my friend called to bring me to the diner for dinner and before we can say where, my phone died on me, ain’t that a typical 1st world problem. Right when you need it, it stopped working. Fortunately, Bernard, blessed his soul, figured out where I’m at and found me. The thing is at this point, I don’t have a key to the apartment nor do I know the area or anyone else in New York City, quite an adventure for the first few hours.

When we got to the Cooper Town Diner, a pretty typical American diner, nothing fancy, well… fancy enough for me. Everything is new to me, and I’m actually in an All-American Diner… till the owner come over and ask for my order, clearly Mexican, and there I have it, the first whiff of that multi-cultural scent of the Big Apple, but I couldn’t order on the spot, there’s too many choices and I’m too damn tired to read through it all! Haha! So I order the first thing that I saw I’d like. Some Specialty… with a large plate of potato fritters. To tell the truth the portion and the price for that meal surprised me; they are unreal to me. I’m still haven’t adjusted from my 3 dollars a meal day back in Asia. And to have a pound of meat with 2 breads and eggs and sausage, not to mention Again, the big flat fritters that almost cover the whole plate, I’m full even before I’m half way through. But, I was ecstatic at this moment. Nothing could go wrong really.
The sun is down and I’m tired so we call it a day and I crash on to my bed.

The next day, the sun is bright, the air is fresh, even the squirrel looks interesting to me. Bernard got me the key card and the door key, and he’s off to work. And my real wandering begins. I have a plan. Not a very sound plan but a plan still. I’ve decided not to get a metro card, Manhattan is a Grid city so I’ve decided to just walk around town, get the feel of it. I have no idea what First Avenue means nor do what streets I’m at. So, I’m free to roam, wherever I want. I know I need to get a line for my phone. Global roaming is too expensive to use on the other side of the earth. So of all places I wandered to Union Square, not a very huge place, the farmers market is on that day, but I was determined to get my line, so I got into a AT&T store and got that done in half an hour. No fuss. Walk around a bit, have my first everything-in-it Chipotle.  And left turn to the South, started walking and walking…
It is a strange thing, I thought that New York City is a Grid city, no map should be needed, but then I find myself getting lost. Why, cause this knucklehead didn’t know that after the number, most of the south side is crisscross streets after streets, the overlapping of Chinatown and the financial district. But I sort of still know where I’m at, cause I can see the New Tower one in the far distance and that’s where I’m heading. That is the first thing that I need to do when I got to New York City. A few years back, I got PTSD from just seeing the event on the news. When I got well, I met a guy from New York City. He was in my country for a few years. And he died of cancer when he was there. I’ve promised if I ever going to go to New York, I’m gonna pay his uncle, A Fire Fighter who like many fireman have past away on that fateful day on that spot, a visit like he did every year before that. So, that was the mission that day, to bring one flower and put on the plate, with his uncle’s name on it, which in a way he is making me commemorate my ending of my PTSD. The funny thing is it is World Cup season and I thought American are not really into football (soccer as they call it). But today, America in up, and everyone is cheering the team against Belgium.
Of course Belgium won, and before I reach the financial district, I’ve walked about 6 hours, pop in and out of bars with all their TV Screen all on the match. I walk a few blocks, I would here some one shout is dismay, and scream Goal!!!! I’m never a real fan of football really, but today I felt I’m part of the city, cheering on, with the American, and the Belgian next door, people were off work now, everyone is either out the front of the bar or inside one to watch the game. No one is walking home. And I continue towards the south end of Manhattan right through the middle of the island on 3rd and 4th Avenue. Well, the match ended with Belgium winning 2-1. Everyone sighed, except from the few pubs open for the Belgian, they started singing and cheering and dancing. It is like I’m at the Games, felt a lot like the time when I’m in Athens for the 2004 Olympics. Even Restaurant, every bars is switch to the games, and supporters all sits outside screaming in support, only this one is wilder, and more hysterical, cause it’s football, football fans are the worst and the best. Anyway, in the end, I did make it just in time before the park is closed. I lay my flower, remembering the time when I first saw the news, and the weeks after, and looking around, after more than 12 years, from all the cheers I’ve heard and what I’ve seen where I walk… It has finally arrived, the day to let go and embrace the future. And Tower One will open its door in November this year.
 
I am glad and relieved. And now… the walk back to my place…

Nope, not gonna do that. So I went underground bought my first metro card and ride the train like everyone else. It’s pretty empty even with the off-working peak hour. And seeing all these people in their hundred dollars suit in the train is a familiar yet strange feeling for me.

I guess this is it. My official ceremony to become a real New Yorker, I got off the train at Union Square, with the sun setting at 8:30 in the evening behind me, and walk for the first time the path of the hundreds time to come for the next few months that I’m gonna walk. And this moment I feel that I got it, the Big Apple, well, at least the South Side of it. As the saying says: “New York is like the Hobbit, You can summarize him in one sentence but everyday He will surprise you with something new!”