The Adventures of Team Parker

New York, New York
A hell of a town.
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.
The People ride in a hole in the ground.
New York, New York
It’s a hell of a town.

This is the first time I’ve been so lazy to blog. I never do well with delayed blogging, tend to lose my lus after a while. And “sharing” a laptop with someone who can’t sleep while you type leaves you pretty much deadlocked. But in a nutshell, I pretty much adore the city and would love to go back again. It was fan-frakken-tastic! So, once again, to the lazy blogger picture book – away!

The day after the Comic Con was a Sunday. We decided to do have a lazy, outdoorsy Sunday so we went to Central Park, which of course we’ve all read so much about and seen so often in movies. By co-incidence, we entered along the path that takes you to Strawberry Field, a memorial to John Lennon who lived and died in New York. It was beautiful, very quiet, lots of people sitting quietly, contemplating. And a couple of people hawking John Lennon badges and posters. I thought that was quite tasteless actually. But you know. I read an article about John once and at the end of it, the author spoke about the hushed atmosphere around the memorial. In a way, I could feel that. But I also felt that the hawkers and the tourists taking happy snaps (including myself) kind of spoiled it.

We wandered through the park and kept remembering movies that had been set in or near it, such as Die Hard With A Vengeance came to mind. Then we went to the Bethesda Fountain and that made us think of One Fine Day, and then we rented a boat at the Boathouse, which made us think of When Harry Met Sally. There were loads of people in the park with their kids and their dogs. When we were on the pond, we saw dads fishing with their sons and little kids playing on the rocks, all against the backdrop of the city. It was really pretty.

After rowing ourselves kus on the pond, we decided to take a casual stroll to the Guggenheim Museum to see the Thannhauser Collection which contains works by Cézanne, Kandinsky, and Picasso among others. But when we got there, we found that the Thannhauser Collection wasn’t on display as it’s on the road, going from museum to museum in Europe. Instead, the Guggenheim was showcasing the work of a Chinese artist named Cai Guo-Qiang. (See examples of his work here.) Well, it was certainly very interesting but we sometimes got this impression that he was “faking it”. Some of his explanations for the things that he did didn’t really make sense to us. (For example, putting on heart rate monitor and electrodes, siting on a mound within a water filled trench and then detonating loads of explosives in circle that radiates outwards. It’s supposed to involve feng shui and show that internal changes he experienced mirrored the earth responding to the detonations. But then saying that actually his heart rate didn’t increase at all. Wtf?) But I liked a lot of his large prints which were done with gunpowder and also the piece with the pack of wolves running into the glass wall (great feeling of movement, futility). There was one installation which contained about six different pieces of work he’d done previously, taken out of their original context and placed together. The artist then asks whether the pieces still have any relevance. I think some of them still worked. Others were just a mystery. What I really liked about that one was the way the fiberglass/reed river invited people to become part of it. So kids were helped into a little boat and encouraged to row down the miniature river. The water ripples, bringing the piece to life, which it wouldn’t if it was just meant to be stared at and not interacted with.

When we left, I decided to get a pretzel from a stand outside, coz it was something I’ve always wanted to do – eat a giant pretzel on the side of the street in New York. And here I am doing it.

Then we went to Greenwich Village and just wandered around. It was really vibey. Definitely a place I’d like to go back to and explore some more. I am so jealous of the peeps who study at New York University coz it’s right in that area and you get to live there! We walked down Bleeker Street. Bleeee-eeee-ker Streeeet! And somehow ended up in Washington Square Park. There was a street market going on next to it and so we wandered around there for a while. So pleasant! And the food smells – oh my goodness. But we didn’t stop for any snacks (even though the corn fritters with mozzarella center looked so good) because we were set to have dinner with Sameer’s classmates, Johannes and Bruce.

Oh, and then we found a bookshop called Strand Bookstore. Well slap me silly – this place was even bigger and better than Myopic Books! They had rare stuff, second hand stuff and new stuff. Their tag line is “over 18 miles of books”. I almost lost it when I stepped in. I could have spent all afternoon in there. I think Sameer realized what was going on (could have been the vacant stare and the drool) and he tried to hustle me out really quickly. But not before I managed to grab hold of two books which I would not be parted with – The Old Man and the Sea and The Scarlett Letter. Here’s a pic I took of the one side from the staircase to the second floor. It doesn’t really do it justice but I was going up and noticed all the shelves and lights and chains and it just looked cool.

Then we went to Union Square where we were meeting the guys. I have not yet found a better place that this for people watching. It was amazing. Firstly, really beautiful, open, green and just filled with people. There were all these people skateboarding around there – young boys and men who were probably in their thirties. The were No Skateboarding signs up so they weren’t skateboarding on the square itself, just on the pavement next to it. Talk about flaunting the rules. But I liked it, I really enjoyed watching them. I could have sat there for much longer but eventually we had to the meeting point up the road.

We met Bruce and Johannes at the Union Square Cafe – not the restaurant, the coffee shop. Not quite as swanky as the other but still really hip. It’s a popular hangout for people in the area and apparently Cameron Diaz was there the day before. There were loads of hot, well groomed people in there. No standard Midwestern sneakers and jeans here. Everyone in New York seems to be dressed to kill. We felt a bit out of place. It was really pretty though – very warm, glowy atmosphere and good food. The guys were just as sweet as I remember them and they had lots of stories to tell about life in New York. Johannes regaled us with a synopsis on how New Yorkers date (so many rules, so little time) and about how he keeps getting text messages at 2am from random girls looking for booty calls. Apparently that is quite normal there and nobody thinks twice about it. Very strange! After dinner we headed down to the Gray Dog’s Coffee Shop for coffee and dessert. More about that later. But let me just say: Best. Brownie. EVER!

Then we were kus and we needed to catch a bus back to New Jersey. It was a really long and eventful day for us and we actually got to see a fair deal of the city, so we were quite happy.

I was supposed to do the rest of the trip in this blog but I’m tired now so I’m going to leave the rest for another post.