After my time at the library I wanted to do something interesting and FREE before meeting up with a friend of mine who I met when I came to New York in January. The first thing that was listed on TimeOut New York's "free things to do today" was a gallery exhibit on the Lower East Side that was mere minutes away from Miansai, the shop where Amanda works in SoHo. After taking my first cold shower of the day and feeling refreshed I got on the train. Once again I missed my stop, or so I thought. It didn't stop where it was supposed to go according to the app I've been using so I kept crossing east 7th street, looking like a crazy person, going from side to side wondering how I missed 2nd avenue. Ultimately I realized that going uptown the F train doesn't stop at that particular station, but it does going downtown. So backtracking, I finally made my way to the gallery.
I won't even pretend to act like I can comment on art in any intelligent way accept to say that I appreciate and respect it. No other city in the world wants you to appreciate and respect art more than New York. At Salon 94, located on the Bowery between pizza places and deli's, lies Jayson Musson's "Exhibit of Abstract Art", an homage to the old comic strip "Nancy" that ran from 1933 - 1982 nationally in daily newspapers. A parody of pop/ modern art, the exhibit features colorful and mocking canvases of "art exhibits", as well as fiberglass structures of an ice cream cone, and what appears to look like a cousin of the Pillsbury dough boy with a bullet blown through his middle. Eye-popping and funny, the space was a blinding white square, and I was the only person there beside the receptionist. Here is some of the work:
I won't even pretend to act like I can comment on art in any intelligent way accept to say that I appreciate and respect it. No other city in the world wants you to appreciate and respect art more than New York. At Salon 94, located on the Bowery between pizza places and deli's, lies Jayson Musson's "Exhibit of Abstract Art", an homage to the old comic strip "Nancy" that ran from 1933 - 1982 nationally in daily newspapers. A parody of pop/ modern art, the exhibit features colorful and mocking canvases of "art exhibits", as well as fiberglass structures of an ice cream cone, and what appears to look like a cousin of the Pillsbury dough boy with a bullet blown through his middle. Eye-popping and funny, the space was a blinding white square, and I was the only person there beside the receptionist. Here is some of the work:
***
My friend works at Miansai in SoHo, on Crosby, a cobblestone block where she's seen Jake Gyllenhaal walk by exactly 3 times. "That's the only reason I got a job here," she told me seriously. Miansai is one of those immaculately designed narrow spaces that thrive in Soho (a shopping haven), combining nautical themed leather goods like wallets, bracelets and organizers with tea and Kombucha. Those totally go together, believe me. We wandered across town to the west side and along the way caught quite a performance in Washington Square Park amongst the hundreds of stressed NYU students.
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| 33 Crosby, Miansai |
There were two twin brothers and another guy dancing, jumping, bouncing, doing all sorts of crazy gymnastics in the middle of a huge crowd. They announced they had toured world wide with the Harlem Globetrotter's, Alicia Keys, among many others, and also Michael Buble, wanting to make sure the white people were listening too. I wish I had a recorded a video, but their finale was one twin literally spinning, flat on his stomach, on top of the other twin's head. They called it the human helicopter and it looked like one. The faster the crowd clapped, the faster he spun. It was crazy, funny, entertaining and made me grin.
Ending my first night out in New York City we went to a restaurant in Chelsea named unironically Elmo, no red puppet in sight. Over Blue Moons, and a veggie burger, my friend and I caught up and immediately I recognized I was getting more and more comfortable with each hour passing in this city. You're alone until you're not, you're left wondering until you're distracted by a face, the train, the sirens. It's comforting to know that the other people around you no matter how long they have lived here are learning each day, and doing interesting and creative things. It's been only a few days, and already I've seen so much, walked so many blocks, and met so many new people that the nerves and anxiety from when I first arrived are quickly starting to fall away.
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