8 posts tagged “new york”
This weekend I visited a delightful art installation beneath the Brooklyn Bridge called the Telectroscope. It's a giant steampunk "machine" ostensibly using a series of optics (or is it fiber optics?) to link New York and London. You can stand in front of the lens and wave to people across the pond. You can send a short message using a whiteboard.
When I was there, a girl had arranged to meet up with her boyfriend who was in London. It was pretty neat that they could see each other.
The art project is the work of Paul St. George and brought to life by Artichoke who also created the 42-ton Sultan's Elephant, a ginormous sculpture and theater project that they had lumber down the streets of London and around the world. Mr. St. George claims that there is an actual tunnel and the images are conveyed via a long series of mirrors. He's concocted an elaborate Victorian history for his creation.
The term telectroscope does date from the Victorian period and it did refer to either fictional or seriously proposed long-distance optical devices or television-like devices that were never realized.....until now!
While the unimaginative will claim this is just an oversized webcam and frankly old technology, this unexpected window onto another slice of the world and even limited access and interaction with distant strangers is strangely exciting and satisfying.
If you're near the Brooklyn Bridge or Tower Bridge in the next few weeks, definitely check it out - it's up until June 15.
When I was there, a girl had arranged to meet up with her boyfriend who was in London. It was pretty neat that they could see each other.
The art project is the work of Paul St. George and brought to life by Artichoke who also created the 42-ton Sultan's Elephant, a ginormous sculpture and theater project that they had lumber down the streets of London and around the world. Mr. St. George claims that there is an actual tunnel and the images are conveyed via a long series of mirrors. He's concocted an elaborate Victorian history for his creation.
The term telectroscope does date from the Victorian period and it did refer to either fictional or seriously proposed long-distance optical devices or television-like devices that were never realized.....until now!
While the unimaginative will claim this is just an oversized webcam and frankly old technology, this unexpected window onto another slice of the world and even limited access and interaction with distant strangers is strangely exciting and satisfying.
If you're near the Brooklyn Bridge or Tower Bridge in the next few weeks, definitely check it out - it's up until June 15.
This delightful little guerilla art installation was discovered by someone on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Pixels of water shooting out of an exhaust pipe. It was ironically tagged with graffiti and subsequently removed.
Heady analysis here.
Also delightful was the recent subway grate animal made of trash bags. When trains pass underneath, hot air rushes up through the grates and hopefully you are not wearing a skirt. Artist Joshua Allen Harris captured this air to create this animal that inflates when a train passes by. Sweet!
Video at Core77.
Heady analysis here.
Also delightful was the recent subway grate animal made of trash bags. When trains pass underneath, hot air rushes up through the grates and hopefully you are not wearing a skirt. Artist Joshua Allen Harris captured this air to create this animal that inflates when a train passes by. Sweet!
First of all, there is a blog devoted entirely to pizza.
The link is to a listing of all the fabulous American regional styles of pizza. As a new New Yorker I have only recently discovered the joy of the New York style pizza - thin crust, wide slice, folded in half like a taco, with fresh mozzarella and not too much. My favorite thus far is Grimaldi's. It's right under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side. Then you go out on the little pier and in a tiny building that looks like a lighthouse there is an ice cream store. It's a perfect summer evening.
But my one true pizza love is Chicago style pizza. A buttery flaky crust loaded with toppings on the bottom, a good inch of cheese and sauce on top. It is eaten with a knife and fork, and even the hungry can only manage two slices tops. It's not for the weak of heart, literally!
Bon appetit!
The link is to a listing of all the fabulous American regional styles of pizza. As a new New Yorker I have only recently discovered the joy of the New York style pizza - thin crust, wide slice, folded in half like a taco, with fresh mozzarella and not too much. My favorite thus far is Grimaldi's. It's right under the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Brooklyn side. Then you go out on the little pier and in a tiny building that looks like a lighthouse there is an ice cream store. It's a perfect summer evening.
But my one true pizza love is Chicago style pizza. A buttery flaky crust loaded with toppings on the bottom, a good inch of cheese and sauce on top. It is eaten with a knife and fork, and even the hungry can only manage two slices tops. It's not for the weak of heart, literally!
Bon appetit!
The premise is cool - you pick out one or more of their designs out of these big binders, you pick out a t-shirt or shorts or thong or whatever you're into, and they transfer the design right then and there - no waiting around. They have a lot of fun designs, but they mostly cater to the younger, hipper crowd. The prices seemed to be comparable to similar off-the-rack t-shirts (probably $20-$25). They'll do designs over the shoulder, around the waist, whatever you want. The guy at the store said he does a lot of t-shirts for the sneakerheads who need clothes to match their new shoes.
I got an big, detailed, anatomical heart line drawing in gold foil on a plain brown tee. It confused my coworker, but I know deep down it's really awesome.
During the 19th and 20th century, humans were sometimes part of zoo exhibits in what we would consider completely despicable circumstances.
Ota Benga was one such individual. He was a pygmy from what was then the Belgian Congo. Most of his tribe had been killed by Belgian forces and he was sold in his late teens/early 20s with some others to the American missionary Samuel Philips Verner who had been sent to Africa for the purpose on behalf of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. In Verner's defense, he made efforts to advocate for Benga as a human being and not a simple curiosity.
In 1906, the incredibly named Hermon Bumpus of the American Natural History Museum in New York suggested that Benga could live at the Bronx Zoo. He did, and roamed around and helped feed the animals. Eventually though the zoo began to display Benga in the Monkey House with a label and everything. The "exhibition" was successful in that it attracted visitors, but it also caused significant controversy.
This was an era where it was acceptable to publicly support wholesale eugenics; some of these people liked Ota Benga's exhibit and others like it because it portrayed modern Africans as "the missing link" between apes and "humans". However black ministers in New York clamored for the exhibit to be shut down because not only was it racist, it promoted the theory of evolution.
Ota Benga was relocated to Lynchburg where various people tried to integrate him into American life. He quit his studies and got a job at a local tobacco plant. In 1916, he built himself a bonfire, did a traditional dance, and committed suicide with a pistol. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Lynchburg.
Today, the Natural History Museum in New York still has a cast of his body and face, but it is still labeled pygmy and not Ota Benga
Ota Benga was one such individual. He was a pygmy from what was then the Belgian Congo. Most of his tribe had been killed by Belgian forces and he was sold in his late teens/early 20s with some others to the American missionary Samuel Philips Verner who had been sent to Africa for the purpose on behalf of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. In Verner's defense, he made efforts to advocate for Benga as a human being and not a simple curiosity.
In 1906, the incredibly named Hermon Bumpus of the American Natural History Museum in New York suggested that Benga could live at the Bronx Zoo. He did, and roamed around and helped feed the animals. Eventually though the zoo began to display Benga in the Monkey House with a label and everything. The "exhibition" was successful in that it attracted visitors, but it also caused significant controversy.
This was an era where it was acceptable to publicly support wholesale eugenics; some of these people liked Ota Benga's exhibit and others like it because it portrayed modern Africans as "the missing link" between apes and "humans". However black ministers in New York clamored for the exhibit to be shut down because not only was it racist, it promoted the theory of evolution.
Ota Benga was relocated to Lynchburg where various people tried to integrate him into American life. He quit his studies and got a job at a local tobacco plant. In 1916, he built himself a bonfire, did a traditional dance, and committed suicide with a pistol. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Lynchburg.
Today, the Natural History Museum in New York still has a cast of his body and face, but it is still labeled pygmy and not Ota Benga
At first I was a big fan of global warming. Especially a few months ago when it was 70 degrees in December sipping coffee on my balcony.
This is a photo created for Vanity Fair to demonstrate the projected future results of global warming. My office is definitely underwater in this picture.
This picture is depressing because the part of lower Manhattan that's still standing in this picture doesn't really have any decent restaurants or bars. Those are all at the bottom of the bay, further uptown.
I'm sure by the time this happens I will be living elsewhere, where the giant tsunamis, roaming tornadoes, and unexpected earthquakes and meteors will be all I have to worry about.
This is a photo created for Vanity Fair to demonstrate the projected future results of global warming. My office is definitely underwater in this picture.
This picture is depressing because the part of lower Manhattan that's still standing in this picture doesn't really have any decent restaurants or bars. Those are all at the bottom of the bay, further uptown.
I'm sure by the time this happens I will be living elsewhere, where the giant tsunamis, roaming tornadoes, and unexpected earthquakes and meteors will be all I have to worry about.
New Yorkers like to think of themselves as sophisticated, enlightened, and worldly. This is perhaps true. But there are also plenty of ignorant, prejudiced, and perverse people walking the streets. Naturally the latter are much more interesting than the former. They can also be found on my most guilty of pleasures Overheard in New York.
Far from politically correct and not at all appropriate for children or adults, it has the paradoxical effect of making you stupider for having read it while also feeling endowed with a mile-high IQ in comparison.
You will not be disappointed.
Public Service Announcement:
If you are:
- hungry for some dumplings
- in Manhattan on 23rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues
- and have approximately nine US dollars
Why should you believe me? Partially because I am Asian. But mostly because I don't like Asian food very much. But I will make an exception here. I have a dumpling-shaped hole in my heart.
