From New York to Narnia
I haven't written a post here in a while, and I'm not sure many people even remember that LiveJournal still exists, but I thought I might do a life update of sorts. For one thing, I received the pictures I commissioned from Becca, who's really cool and has been having a difficult time of things recently. She drew a picture of Beth with Wally (who's actually sitting on me right now, but I don't know how long he'll stay), and one of Glinda and Ozma.
Yesterday, I went with Beth and Tavie to the Guggenheim Museum, where today is the last day you can get a free year-long membership with a New York City ID from 2015. They're currently renovating a lot of it, so there were quite a few closed spaces, and you couldn't go all the way down the spiral. I'm sure that, as a kid, I would have just wanted to run down that without more than a cursory glance at the exhibits. My parents won't let me forget about the time we went to Ausable Chasm and I ran through as much of it as possible, heedless of the fact that this was really dangerous. I did get some pictures of people working on exhibits down on the bottom floor.
I have to wonder what the purpose of the decapitated panda is. They had a Kandinsky exhibit that I quite liked; I'm not always that big on abstract art, but his paintings are just so colorful and active.
I also thought that this water fountain looked like something from a fairy tale castle.
Yeah, I know the fountain wasn't on display, but I tend to notice side details like that. It's like how, when I'd go to theme parks as a kid, I was fascinated by how minor aspects were made to fit the theme of a particular area, and somewhat bothered when they didn't fit. I remember reading that one reason Walt Disney insisted on the underground passages at Walt Disney World was that it took people out of the fantasy when costumed employees had to walk through the wrong part of the park, like an astronaut in Frontierland. Honestly, though, that probably would have just amused me, like when people wear Starfleet uniforms to the Renaissance Faire and pretend they've gone back in time.
After the museum, we met Stephanie at a Greek restaurant and had dinner there. I had seafood and pasta with tomato sauce, which kind of seems more Italian than Greek, but they are pretty close to each other. There are a lot of similarities between food from different Mediterranean nations. My taste in food is mostly pretty mundane. I like pizza, pasta, shrimp, and hot dogs. I'm not as big on burgers as my wife is, but I still enjoy them, especially when I can get them with a cheese other than American. I can usually find something I like at just about any restaurant, though. My main issues are that I won't eat anything too spicy, I don't much care for onions and peppers, and potatoes and rice aren't that agreeable to me unless they have enough other flavors mixed in (which means I'll generally eat them fried, because pretty much all fried food tastes about the same). I realize I'm a really picky eater, but I think I'm getting better. I gave Beth part of the salad that came with my meal (hers didn't come with one), but I actually thought it was pretty good for a salad. Pretty much everything came with feta cheese, which has a good flavor to it.
I just recently learned that there's an Oz Convention in Philadelphia this year, so it would be kind of silly if I didn't go to it. I'm seriously considering going to the one in Oregon as well; the rates actually went up today, but not by that much. A bigger concern is whether I should take Beth, who's not into Oz stuff, but I do like sharing my interests with her. I go to the Monster-Mania Convention with her, and have learned to appreciate the horror genre, but those conventions are a lot cheaper. On the other hand, you don't get meals there. The last time I went to one of the Oz Club's conventions was in 2000, and I enjoyed them a lot back then. That's not to say there weren't slow parts, but usually I could find something to read or otherwise check out during those. There are so many stories I started reading at conventions that I wish I could find again.
While I read all of Mari Ness's Oz reviews and am currently keeping up with her write-ups on Disney animated films and their source material, I wasn't aware until this week that she reviewed the Chronicles of Narnia five years ago. Reading her thoughts and the comments made me want to write some more about Narnia, but looking back through my previous posts on the series, I've already covered just about everything I can think of. It happens to me every so often that I think I have a good idea for a post, then I find I've already written it. The Narnia series is one I grew up enjoying and still do, but I've also found quite a bit about it objectionable or just plain sloppy. It was pointed out a few times in Mari's posts and the comments on them how small Narnia is, both in terms of land area and how long it lasted. While not explicitly stated in the books, C.S. Lewis' timeline indicated that the entire world lasted a mere 2555 years from creation to destruction. I noted in my brief review of The Last Battle when I re-read it ten years ago that the Narnian apocalypse came across as fairly small-time and unnecessary. The ape and his donkey partner in a lion skin were not at all threatening, but apparently Aslan thought their playing a trick was enough to wipe out the whole place. But then, attempts to end a popular series are rarely very convincing to the fans. Just ask L. Frank Baum or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (you know, if they were still alive and able to be asked anything).
I had an interview on Thursday for a temporary assignment, and while I don't want to go into too much detail on a public post, it sounded promising. Most of the snow in the area has been cleaned up by now, but the intersections always seem to be particularly bad. There was even a New York Times article about it. Oh, and I guess this Thursday is when I'll see Jenny Lewis, so that's something to look forward to.
Yesterday, I went with Beth and Tavie to the Guggenheim Museum, where today is the last day you can get a free year-long membership with a New York City ID from 2015. They're currently renovating a lot of it, so there were quite a few closed spaces, and you couldn't go all the way down the spiral. I'm sure that, as a kid, I would have just wanted to run down that without more than a cursory glance at the exhibits. My parents won't let me forget about the time we went to Ausable Chasm and I ran through as much of it as possible, heedless of the fact that this was really dangerous. I did get some pictures of people working on exhibits down on the bottom floor.
I have to wonder what the purpose of the decapitated panda is. They had a Kandinsky exhibit that I quite liked; I'm not always that big on abstract art, but his paintings are just so colorful and active.
I also thought that this water fountain looked like something from a fairy tale castle.
Yeah, I know the fountain wasn't on display, but I tend to notice side details like that. It's like how, when I'd go to theme parks as a kid, I was fascinated by how minor aspects were made to fit the theme of a particular area, and somewhat bothered when they didn't fit. I remember reading that one reason Walt Disney insisted on the underground passages at Walt Disney World was that it took people out of the fantasy when costumed employees had to walk through the wrong part of the park, like an astronaut in Frontierland. Honestly, though, that probably would have just amused me, like when people wear Starfleet uniforms to the Renaissance Faire and pretend they've gone back in time.
After the museum, we met Stephanie at a Greek restaurant and had dinner there. I had seafood and pasta with tomato sauce, which kind of seems more Italian than Greek, but they are pretty close to each other. There are a lot of similarities between food from different Mediterranean nations. My taste in food is mostly pretty mundane. I like pizza, pasta, shrimp, and hot dogs. I'm not as big on burgers as my wife is, but I still enjoy them, especially when I can get them with a cheese other than American. I can usually find something I like at just about any restaurant, though. My main issues are that I won't eat anything too spicy, I don't much care for onions and peppers, and potatoes and rice aren't that agreeable to me unless they have enough other flavors mixed in (which means I'll generally eat them fried, because pretty much all fried food tastes about the same). I realize I'm a really picky eater, but I think I'm getting better. I gave Beth part of the salad that came with my meal (hers didn't come with one), but I actually thought it was pretty good for a salad. Pretty much everything came with feta cheese, which has a good flavor to it.
I just recently learned that there's an Oz Convention in Philadelphia this year, so it would be kind of silly if I didn't go to it. I'm seriously considering going to the one in Oregon as well; the rates actually went up today, but not by that much. A bigger concern is whether I should take Beth, who's not into Oz stuff, but I do like sharing my interests with her. I go to the Monster-Mania Convention with her, and have learned to appreciate the horror genre, but those conventions are a lot cheaper. On the other hand, you don't get meals there. The last time I went to one of the Oz Club's conventions was in 2000, and I enjoyed them a lot back then. That's not to say there weren't slow parts, but usually I could find something to read or otherwise check out during those. There are so many stories I started reading at conventions that I wish I could find again.
While I read all of Mari Ness's Oz reviews and am currently keeping up with her write-ups on Disney animated films and their source material, I wasn't aware until this week that she reviewed the Chronicles of Narnia five years ago. Reading her thoughts and the comments made me want to write some more about Narnia, but looking back through my previous posts on the series, I've already covered just about everything I can think of. It happens to me every so often that I think I have a good idea for a post, then I find I've already written it. The Narnia series is one I grew up enjoying and still do, but I've also found quite a bit about it objectionable or just plain sloppy. It was pointed out a few times in Mari's posts and the comments on them how small Narnia is, both in terms of land area and how long it lasted. While not explicitly stated in the books, C.S. Lewis' timeline indicated that the entire world lasted a mere 2555 years from creation to destruction. I noted in my brief review of The Last Battle when I re-read it ten years ago that the Narnian apocalypse came across as fairly small-time and unnecessary. The ape and his donkey partner in a lion skin were not at all threatening, but apparently Aslan thought their playing a trick was enough to wipe out the whole place. But then, attempts to end a popular series are rarely very convincing to the fans. Just ask L. Frank Baum or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (you know, if they were still alive and able to be asked anything).
I had an interview on Thursday for a temporary assignment, and while I don't want to go into too much detail on a public post, it sounded promising. Most of the snow in the area has been cleaned up by now, but the intersections always seem to be particularly bad. There was even a New York Times article about it. Oh, and I guess this Thursday is when I'll see Jenny Lewis, so that's something to look forward to.