Christy Takes America
May 25 to June 8, 2005

So, my dear friend Shannon and I took a last-minute-esque trip to the US of A this past Summer. Having not been east of Alberta, this was my first foray into the world of Eastern North America. Shannon had just found out she was starting a new, swanky job in early June and so our excursion that was originally planned for August was  bumped up to the end of May. With a weeks notice we booked tickets and vacation time (well, I did) and set off from our good old YVR to embark upon the city that never sleeps. Shannon had gone to school on exchange at Cooper Union in NYC in 2003 and so we stayed with her ex-roommate (and pornographic-water-colourer) Tracy Nakayama in their lovely remodeled-warehouse flat in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And thank God, since I don't know how we would have been able to afford accommodation otherwise. (And some of these photos are Shannon's since my camera is au manual and therefore useless in certain low-light situations sans flash.) (And yes I realise that these photos are all different sizes, which makes for a somewhat annoying viewing experience. I stopped caring in, like, 1958.) (But at least my camera was not my enemy this trip, since I was using my new 35-70mm compact zoom! Woah, metric!)


In the beginning, there was a bagel. New York had the biggest and best bagels I have ever sunk teeth into. The things were HUGE!  Huge as in, "Damn this thing is loaded with cream cheese and I won't be hungry for the next four hours" huge!  I got really into the whole $1.60 sesame bagel/plain cream cheese/tomato deal. Amazing. And delicious. The Jewish are genius. Shannon drinking an iced coffee, which she seemed to do at least thirteen times a day. Here, she waits at a bus stop with one.

 
Looking southeast from the Empire State Building in Manhattan, this red arrow is pointing to where we stayed in Brooklyn.  We were right by the Williamsburg Bridge, which is right by the now-defunct Domino Sugar refinery, which happens to be right on the edge of all the arty-hipster mayhem in Williamsburg.  We were basically ten minutes away from a subway station at all times, and just across the East River from Manhattan.  Wowee! Of course, Americans are really into the most unnecessary tackiness and managed to immortalize King Kong on an observation deck plaque which compared the height of the ESB to other famous buildings in the world.  You know, which must come in handy if you’re visiting from a country which has a lot of giant primates instead of modern architecture.
The Empire State Building had one of those lame touristy things where they make you pose with a backdrop on your way up and then try and convince you to buy a photo of it on your way down.  Shannon and I, thrifty yet clever, took advantage of this system and snapped a photo of the photo with her camera.  Notice our impenetrable excitement! And light refracting into the lens! The other super touristy thing I had to do was see the Statue of Liberty. My friend in Vancouver had done this art project where she took postcards from various places and cut out the scenery so one could hold up worldly iconic landmarks to a background of Vancouver landscape. So I took her photo of Lady Liberty in front of BC Place Stadium and cut out the statue and then held that up in front of the real statue!! Woah, I'm blowing my own mind!!
At the Guggenheim was a show by Daniel Buren which mostly consisted of this giant mirrored structure that cut up through the middle of the gallery to the skylight (that's us in the mirror). I really appreciated how it completely disjointed the whole architecture of the central interior space, which would normally spiral upwards uninhibited for seven floors.
The ceiling was also covered in blue and purple translucent film, as were a bunch of other windows in other areas of the gallery. And there was a huge wall of his striped fabric paintings and... well, you had to be there.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has this wonderful rooftop where you can relax with a beer and chips and enjoy some sculpture. You're surrounded by a brilliant green hedge (God knows I love well kept shrubbery) and the view is absolutely gorgeous. These sculptures were by Sol LeWitt. Someone later mentioned to me how the shape of the sculptures mimics the skyline, which is an interesting observation, but just too obvious for me to figure out on my own. I was busy calculating the concentric mass and relative diametrical light value of any single given peak.
There's nothing that really spells classy like relaxing in a Central Park with some beer in paper bags. There were these two elephant sculptures at the start of Central Park by a Japanese artist (who I forget the name of) that were wearing underpants decorated with underpants. And the bigger one also had this lovely dollop of poop which was decorated with little poop images. The elephants were part of a show called Little Boy at the Japan Center, which was curated by Takashi Murakami (major Japanese artist!).
This was the only photo I took at the Museum of Modern Art (the MoMA). This woman is edifying a group of children about the artwork, but the photograph she's talking about is by Jeff Wall, who is Vancouver's famous photographer extraordinairre, and who helped birth the whole photo-conceptualism movement in the 70's and 80's. I thought that this whole moment was kind of funny. And it's not even one of his seminal works. I was forced into watching a Mets baseball game by Shannon and her friend Andy and his friends (who are all named Andy as well). I had to sneak a bottle of Jack Daniels in just to come out alive.

After the Mets game we ended up at the Turkey's Nest, which is a mildly-scummy little pub in Wiliamsburg. But dammit, if we didn't kick some ass at pool! Between Shannon, Andy #1 and I, we lost only one game all night.
I will partially but reluctantly credit our suave billiard standings to the fact that the Turkey's Nest served these giant styrofoam beers for $3.50 apiece (or something equally ridiculous) which I believe caused our competition to be inebriated to the point of complete motor skill loss. Luckily, inebriation makes me play better!
This sculpture outside of the Ritz Carlton by Jim Hodgson is part of a continual series of public work which is put on by a group called Creative Time. It was this whole thing in black, white, chrome and negative space camouflage, which was quite surreal; I nearly got lost trying to get a rock out of my shoe.

The Deitch Projects gallery was home to a Barry McGee exhibition during our trip. The space was basically an unfinished warehouse and there were a bunch of paintings and drawings on the walls...
...and there was this huge pile of commercial vans, and some of the wheels were attached to motors so they turned really slowly, as if the momentum of the crash was still inherent in the piece. And there were these realistic "mannequins" which were also motorized. The guy at the top of this stack had an arm which moved back and forth holding a bottle of spraypaint. There was also a public washroom setup and a guy standing in there painting the mirror, which was really creepy until you realised that he was artificial, and then it was even creepier.
P.S.1 and the Sculpture Center both were showcasing new work by emerging New York artists. I don't know what this was, but the colours are really great. I don't know who did this, either, but it was pretty much a cityscape built entirely out of cardboard and tape and stuff, and it filled a whole corridor. Shannon and I thought it was of a very Canadian west coast mentality. Artistically.

Perhaps I should mention that after art, food was our main initiative for going anywhere. My Vancouver landlord had saved a menu from her NY trip a year previous from this place called the Shake Shack, which she insisted we must visit. And we did! In Madison Square Park we feasted on delicious burgers and "frozen custard", which claims it's not ice cream but really is. Quite cute, if I'm allowing myself to use that word. And very art-deco. In fact, I believe my Landlord installed address numbers on our house which very closely resemble the Shake Shack font.

 Shanarnnins and I also managed to find a pickle place somewhere around the vicinity of somewhere. Look how inviting the world of pickled goods becomes when bombarded with wooden barrels! Of course, it's all just a front as everything's stored in plastic buckets within the barrels, but damn if those Hot 'n' Spicy Kosher Dills didn't knock my socks off.
And (while I'm still employing the use of negative phrasing or whatever the kids are calling it these days) if there wasn't a gem hidden in the Parker Meridian. The Burger Joint was this funny little place which had decent burgers and brownies and fries and was practically unfindable unless you were directed by some New York restaurant guide in a bookstore that told you to look behind some curtains in the lobby of a swanky hotel. Worth it just for the insane amount of searching needed to locate the entrance, and when you do find it you're so ego-stroked that you're all like, "CSI was based on me." And so we also found this place in... (shit, I still don't know the names of any districts) that my friend Amy had recommended, John's Pizza, where we split a small cheese (which was huge) and had a beer. We liked this strange painting on the wall, though; we thought it rather looked like the long-lost twin painter of our dear friend, Collin Johanson. He's always going on about waterfall caves and rowboats.
Shannon's friend Thea worked at this place called the Chocolate Bar where we were able to sample a variety of very fancy chocolate. The truffles were created using this brilliant method which leaves a cocoa-butter imprint on the surface on which it cools; so amazing that I can't believe I didn't come up with this concept. We also drank spiced hot chocolate (if you've never had a flavour combination of chocolate and chili, I suggest you do that right now. I first tasted it in the form of ice cream in Melbourne years ago and must say that it still one of my top top top favourites). These cakes were in the window of a Williamsburg bakery. As decrepit as they were, I was drawn to the one in the middle. There's a woman on it kneeling down in a see-through negligee. So what, men celebrate bachelor parties with cakes? Cakes with pink icing and roses? ?!?!!!
Of course, we had to go to Coney Island, which isn't really an island, I sadly learned. We walked around and drank beer on the beach secretly and even found some lady selling clothes for fifty cents (approx. $0.625 Canadian)!
We decided that we had to go on a ride, and so we picked the Wonder Wheel, for the view. But some of the cars on it are on these tracks that make them fall and swing about twice a rotation, which scared the shit out of us. But not really. In the background is the Cyclone rollercoaster, which I had wanted to ride, but ended up not doing. Regret #1.
The most amazing thing I saw on Coney Island, though, was this group of people huddled around a karaoke stand on the boardwalk. A guy was in the booth singing Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" over the loudspeaker, and everyone was enraptured and singing along to the point where the two people in white shirts were punching their fists in the air on the chorus. Wow. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Prepare yourself: a photo of me taken in New York holding up a photo of myself taken in Vancouver printed a magazine based in Athens, Georgia found in a bookstore in New York City. WOAH!
After a week and a few days, I split up with Shannon and went to Philadelphia to visit my friend Seann, who's a big animation nerd and works at one of the local art schools (the better one, obviously). We decided to prove our coolness by wearing matching Frida Kahlo tattoos. And documenting it with out-of-focus photos. But we're, like, so cool that we don't care. Whatever. There also happens to be a shitload of public sculpture in Philly. Unfortunately, if you don't watch out, it falls on you.
But then you can be all like, Take that, giant chess piece! and assert your human dominance by standing on top of it [looking retarded]. On this day we also ate meatball sandwiches and saw someone drop a pile of papers on the street which were blown all over and sailed through the air everywhere in one of those really graceful (but now only really classified as American Beauty-esque) moments.
Or else you can stand with yer hands on yer hips and just stay away from public sculpture altogether, especially all that Claes Oldenberg stuff. This is just across the street from City Hall, reminding everyone that 50 years ago no one had electric clothes dryers.
At the Philadelphia City Hall you can ride an elevator up to the very top of its tower, which has an observation deck just beneath a giant statue of William Penn. And then you can see the whole city, including this one diagonal causeway that leads straight to the city's art museum. Right at the bottom of the photo you can see all the chess and checker and parcheezee pieces just littered around a building. While waiting for the elevator to the observation deck, we waited in this deserted lobby, which had a ghettoblaster just sitting on these chairs playing hard-core rap.
Since Philly is pretty much the birthplace of the USA, the city exudes a lot of pride concerning its historical relics. For instance, they had this intense security system in place before you could even think of taking a look at the Liberty Bell. You were forced to go through metal detectors and have your bags screened like in airports. And the whole outer perimeter was fenced off with guards and I could feel that they carried guns. Big ones.
Yup, thar she is. Did you know that "the Liberty Bell symbolizes independence and freedom throughout the entire world"? I wonder if anyone outside of America knows this.
That arrow is pointing to me after I had just ran up the steps of the Art Museum after having channeled the fictional spirit of Rocky. This monstrous castle is the now-defunct Eastern State Penitentiary, the first prison of its kind in the States. It was built in the late 19th century and survived until the 70's, housing such famous inmates as Al Capone, and boasting a headset-guided walking tour hosted by actor, writer, and director Steve Buschemi. I am not even joking.
The prison had this panopticon-style layout where several corridors extended from a single central axis, so as to efficiently maximize security monitoring with minimal staff. The building was in such an amazing state of disrepair that plaster was chipping off the walls and water dripped from the ceiling and it stank of must. And there were also at least seven or eight artist installations throughout the prison, one of which was by Gillian Wearing down this corridor (on the audio tour, Steve Buschemi asks you to pause at this very spot, his favourite, to admire the view!). In each of the dark bottom cells were placed hidden machines that panged on pipes or floors or walls in a broken rhythm, building up to an incredibly intense and quite loud clamoring cell-block crescendo. Oh, art!

Philly, I learned, is very proud of its hoagies, and don't you dare get caught calling them submarine sandwiches. Also, a traditional cheesesteak is prepared with onions and Cheese Whiz, though you can opt for American cheese or provolone. They also have this stuff brilliantly named "water ice" which is like a cross between a slurpee and sherbet, and you have to eat it with a spoon. And cream cheese is not as monumental there as you'd like to think. But the best thing I learned is that Philadelphia is the city that loves you back. Honestly.


It was pretty neat seeing how prominent art is in New York. Walking around Chelsea we'd go into a random gallery and realise that we were looking at the new work of Richard Prince, or a strange show with a bunch of Duchamp readymades and a series of Paul McCarthy videos playing in the window. The museums housed so much stuff that we got sick of looking at Picasso's and Matisse's, although there were Basquiat and Max Ernst and Lee Friedlander retrospectives, which were interesting. We walked around so much that I got insanely painful blisters on the bottoms of my feet and at one point had to actually take a cab from the subway to the place we were staying because I couldn't manage the seven minute walk. Otherwise, it was so nice to just relax without an itinerary, stopping for a beer whenever the inkling struck. And Philly was just as great, but it also had $25 Converse sneakers, 99-cent socks (1% cotton!), and the highly-recommended Mutter Museum of Medical Science with its rows upon rows of peculiar things in formaldehyde. In NY I was most impressed with the Tim Hawkinson show at the Whitney, of which I bought the catalogue; his ridiculously intricate use of motors, mechanics and electronics fascinated me. And the only time we really paid to see a show was at the Guggenheim, since we managed to weasle our way into the other galleries with minimal donations, borrowed membership passes, and asking for admission buttons from people who had just exited the show. I can also not stress enough thanks to the lovely Shannon, who if had not accompanied me would have forced to me actually pay attention to where we were going, which is why I never knew where we were. And also to Seann, who completely understood (and even encouraged) my desire to take tacky tourist photos. And... so I guess that's it.

links | East Coast '06 | Sicily '04 | home