NYC: Me, Meg, Mike, McKeown, Met & Whitney

After work on Friday I grabbed a snack and then headed down to the Dinky station. The Dinky is the little train that runs from the Princeton campus to the big train station at Princeton Junction. There aren't any stops (except the beginning and the end) and I think the entire trip is something like 3 miles. Thus the name: Dinky.

I headed in to Penn Station and met up with one of my oldest friends, Meg. We took the Subway to the East Village and met up with our friend from high school, Mike, to see Erin McKeown at Joe's Pub. We had great seats at a table near the stage and the show was fantastic. It was a completely solo show, she did most songs on guitar, but also played the piano on some. She featured many songs from a CD that she just finished recording (they were great!) and then played some of my favorite tunes of hers. It was a great mix of old and new, funny, serious, heart-wrenching, and always entertaining. It was a great evening.

And after the show I went to buy a CD and she came out to sign and I was second in line and happened to have my camera. She offered to take it at her arm's length, but she's only about 5 feet tall, so this is what we got:


After the show Mike and Meg and I walked a couple blocks to a place called Pomme Frites. All they sell is Belgian-style french fries (pomme frites) and dipping sauces and there was a line out the door. We got one small order with a side of rosemary-garlic mayo. It was amazing:


After a very long and interupted subway ride up to Meg's place on 217th (we started out on 7th or 8th, I think), we finally made it home and crashed.

Meg had to meet up with her Aunt early on Saturday morning, so we decided to meet at the Met around 10:30. There were a couple exhibits I wanted to see and tons of stuff that we had the pleasure of discovering as we wandered around this cavernous museum. I loved the panoramic mural of Versailles, their extensive African collection, a great collection of British poster art, a photograph exhibit, and so much more. Meg and I wandered into a "gallery" that's apparently holding the American collection while they re-do that part of the museum. It was like walking through some crazy storage area with amazing, famous, beautiful art just crammed in practically on top of each other. Here is Meg looking at some portraits:

And here is an example of where some of the sculpture was housed:

The day started out to be a little cloudy and gloomy and I was bummed because one of the things I really wanted to do was go to the rooftop sculpture garden. But after we took a little break in the cafeteria we noticed that the rooftop deck was open and we went up to see this Jeff Koons exhibit:


And the view is beautiful, looking over Central Park:

After spending the whole morning in the Met, I was looking forward to heading to the Whitney. It's about a 10 block walk, but we had been on our feet for hours. I suggested that we take one of the pedicabs (bicycle rickshaws) that was waiting outside the museum, but Meg (fearing for her saftey) vetoed that plan. I thought it would have been a brilliant way to make the trip a little quicker and have a great little story to tell... Oh well, maybe next time. :)

The Whitney is pretty strict about "no photos", so I don't have any to show, but it was great. There is an really cool installation in the lobby gallery that is kind of hard to explain, but it left me so happy and inspired. Basically, there is a room built into the middle of the gallery and it's a functioning kitchen and photo studio. The corners are cut out so that you can see inside the room from each of the corners. Three days per week (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) the artist (Corin Hewitt) stays in this room and cooks, cans and photographs food (mostly vegetables grown on his farm in Vermont). He was there while we were there and it was just so cool to watch an artist at work, and to have a conversation with him. There weren't that many people in the gallery and I was just blown away. We talked about composting, photography, what his plans are for the show (it's up for the next three months and he's planning on hanging the photos that he makes in the room on the surrounding gallery walls), and I told him I thought it was brilliant and that I'd be back to see how it pans out and then wished him luck. I mean how often do you get to do that? It was great, and I do hope to get back at some point before it closes. The show is called Seed Stage and it's at the Whitney until January 4th. You can read more about it (and see some photos) in articles from The New York Times and Time Out New York.

The other cool thing about the Whitney is that they have an Art-o-Mat machine! Here is the photo from the Art-o-Mat website of the machine downstairs by the gift shop at the Whitney:So I expanded my collection and got a small block of screenprinted wood. It's pretty nice.

After much museum-ing and tiring out our feet, Meg and I grabbed a late lunch and then headed down to Penn Station. I found my way back to NJ Transit, and an hour and a half later, made it home. And even after such a great time in NY, one of the best parts of my weekend was walking into my apartment to the smell of freshly painted walls! As soon as I hang stuff up I'll be sure to post some photos.