Not Bill's version.
Today was an interesting day- I saw "The Gates" over at Central Park. I hadn't ever walked through Central Park during the daylight before. It's something I was always meaning to do once I started living here, and what better time to do it when there are big pieces of orange fabric being festooned everywhere?
It was very... orange. But I like that. I don't "get" a lot of modern art. But I get The Gates. Why are we raising up a bunch of random orange gates along a ton of walkways? Because it's damn cool, that's why. Simple. This isn't something to write a long essay on- you just look at it and smile, or not, whichever. I was amused by one of the articles I read from the above link(the Washington Post) where the artsy journalist was disappointed and trying to figure out what the gates "meant."
From what I can tell, older projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude -- they've jettisoned last names -- had more of those profound effects.
Their "Running Fence" from 1976 consisted of a white fabric wall, 18 feet high, that crossed 24 miles of rolling California landscape. It seemed to talk about the fencing of the West; about the American Dream's obsession with open space; about competition between man and nature. Set where very few would ever get to see it, the "Fence" had the grandeur of a splendid folly, on the order of Mount Rushmore or of Land Art projects such as Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" in Great Salt Lake or Michael Heizer's bulldozed landscapes in remote Nevada.
They don't mean anything, buster. I'm not sure this older project meant anything either, the intentional granduer of splendid folly aside. If someone forced me to write a newspaper article on this, I'd just say that this is the type of architecture you see in video games, which are free from the actual expense of building their architecture and merely has to animate it, so can concentrate on making cities & villain's castles just look neat. The Gates is something right out of a video game- Shadow Hearts II, to be precise, but I think I've seen this other places as well. We need this kind of silly frills sometimes. Especially the times where it doesn't cost the government a dime and is just funded by the crazy rich people.
So yeah. Central Park is neat. Most of the more nearby parks are entirely too small and consumed by playgrounds- nothing like Tappan Square, certainly. Central Park still have a proper size to it, and it's nicely rough around the edges as well. I was surprised when climbing around on the rocks to see that if I continued downward, the drop-off to the ground would be most painful and capable of twisting your ankle if you were dumb enough to continue. Just like at a REAL nature park, in other words. They hadn't set up safety ladders or whatever. I can definitely approve of that.
I also was reminded over the past two days that my soul apparently took the flaw "Can't find restaurants" at Character Creation. Oh, don't get me wrong, I can find all the supermarkety/deli style places you could ask for, as well as 10-dollar entree sit-down places; those are a dime a dozen. But I can't find MY preferred style of sit-down restraunt when I'm in the mood for one; the greasy spoon kind of sit-down diner which only costs 3-6 dollars for most entrees. Utterly failed yesterday, and only found one in an area absolutely packed with them when I'm not looking for 'em after much searching (that being the 86th street area west of Central Park). Oh well. It's probably good to just walk around a whole ton every once in awhile, like I did today.
It was very... orange. But I like that. I don't "get" a lot of modern art. But I get The Gates. Why are we raising up a bunch of random orange gates along a ton of walkways? Because it's damn cool, that's why. Simple. This isn't something to write a long essay on- you just look at it and smile, or not, whichever. I was amused by one of the articles I read from the above link(the Washington Post) where the artsy journalist was disappointed and trying to figure out what the gates "meant."
From what I can tell, older projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude -- they've jettisoned last names -- had more of those profound effects.
Their "Running Fence" from 1976 consisted of a white fabric wall, 18 feet high, that crossed 24 miles of rolling California landscape. It seemed to talk about the fencing of the West; about the American Dream's obsession with open space; about competition between man and nature. Set where very few would ever get to see it, the "Fence" had the grandeur of a splendid folly, on the order of Mount Rushmore or of Land Art projects such as Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" in Great Salt Lake or Michael Heizer's bulldozed landscapes in remote Nevada.
They don't mean anything, buster. I'm not sure this older project meant anything either, the intentional granduer of splendid folly aside. If someone forced me to write a newspaper article on this, I'd just say that this is the type of architecture you see in video games, which are free from the actual expense of building their architecture and merely has to animate it, so can concentrate on making cities & villain's castles just look neat. The Gates is something right out of a video game- Shadow Hearts II, to be precise, but I think I've seen this other places as well. We need this kind of silly frills sometimes. Especially the times where it doesn't cost the government a dime and is just funded by the crazy rich people.
So yeah. Central Park is neat. Most of the more nearby parks are entirely too small and consumed by playgrounds- nothing like Tappan Square, certainly. Central Park still have a proper size to it, and it's nicely rough around the edges as well. I was surprised when climbing around on the rocks to see that if I continued downward, the drop-off to the ground would be most painful and capable of twisting your ankle if you were dumb enough to continue. Just like at a REAL nature park, in other words. They hadn't set up safety ladders or whatever. I can definitely approve of that.
I also was reminded over the past two days that my soul apparently took the flaw "Can't find restaurants" at Character Creation. Oh, don't get me wrong, I can find all the supermarkety/deli style places you could ask for, as well as 10-dollar entree sit-down places; those are a dime a dozen. But I can't find MY preferred style of sit-down restraunt when I'm in the mood for one; the greasy spoon kind of sit-down diner which only costs 3-6 dollars for most entrees. Utterly failed yesterday, and only found one in an area absolutely packed with them when I'm not looking for 'em after much searching (that being the 86th street area west of Central Park). Oh well. It's probably good to just walk around a whole ton every once in awhile, like I did today.