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NYC Fourth of July 2008 (or about 3/4 of one)

July 4, 2008

Happy 4th to you…although I’m posting this so late it probably won’t be seen by anyone until the 5th. But that’s okay. I only got to see about 75% of the fireworks (although I saw the whole show) so, on balance, seeing 3/4’s of the fourth on the fifth is the fourth. Right?

That’s way too wordy and idiotic. I oughta just delete it, but it’s late and I need to make my post.

Anyway, I went out to see the fireworks, but there was something of a problem.

Yeah, a building was partially in the way. So, I only got to see about 3/4’s of any explosion.

It was also raining a little. Fortunately, not enough to spoil the show, but enough to make the end of the fireworks highly anticipated so we could get out of it.

There only seemed to be one boat firing off the fireworks (it was anchored in the middle of the East River). I should have recorded the TV show to see if there were others further to the south. I looked to see if I could detect another one, but didn’t see anything.

The bit that was interesting was before the show, we could see lots of fireworks going off miles and miles away in Brooklyn and Queens. A couple of them seemed to be pretty big shows. I suppose one of them could have been in Coney Island (I believe I’ve heard it has a good show, too). But the East River show is the big’un.

The show was done well. It escalated nicely and there were a few well-deserved gasps when it hit the occasional cresendo. The crowds at the center of the action usually have a musical accompaniment; but nothing for us on the far edges of the show.

-H

Categories: Events, Hudson and East River Views, Mid-town

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Lever House Sculpture

July 2, 2008

I was wandering past “Lever House” and saw something I didn’t expect: something fun and interesting.

I’m getting way too cynical in my old age.

I’ve done a couple of earlier posts on Lever House artwork (see here and here) and I generally find their stuff not to my taste or just insipid. This one was absolutely primed for such treatment, and then I found myself enjoying it.

Wait for it….

It’s “Hello Kitty”.

Yeah. Hello Kitty. I have never for a moment found anything interesting about Hello Kitty…until now. I’ve always thought of it as the quintessential commercial dreck aimed directly at five-year-old girls and their mothers. And I’m a guy who was watching anime from way back. (I actually lived in Japan as a teenager and used to watch some of the shows and read their comic books. And I’m sure no teenager now. Decades away, in fact.) Bluntly put: until this exhibit, I hated Hello Kitty.

The pieces are huge. And, despite their white color; they’re made of bronze. Okay, I don’t know that for certain, but the collection is called “Bronze Collection”. I didn’t touch them to confirm. The sculptor is Tom Sachs and they are on display until September 6.

The next pictures above and below have some motion to them: streams of water shooting out of their eyes. That’s anime for crying. No tears: streams of water shooting outward.

Why did I enjoy them? I really don’t know. They are certainly a relief from the supposed intellectual content of the earlier sculptures that I didn’t like. I do enjoy playfulness and although a small Hello Kitty depiction on a handbag or t-shirt is not something I get any pleasure from; a ten or twelve foot one is a delight.

Sort of like a giant walking marshmellow if you catch my drift.

-H

Categories: Events, Manhattan, Mid-town, Wanderings

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Basketball at South Street Seaport

June 30, 2008

I was down at the South Street Seaport area over the weekend and saw that they were setting up a basketball court.

Not that they were going to play any games there, though. Instead, it seemed to be a combination of Verizon, the NBA, and the WNBA to publicize their products and to let some locals have some fun. It was around 12:30 or so when I first walked by and people were already lined up and waiting to join in.

There seemed to be some minor obstacles to perform. In honesty, I only saw one person do the process and that was when I was leaving the area. Basically, it was something like shoot a basket, dribble the ball around the cutout figures, pass a basketball to a holding area, and then shoot another basket. I have no idea why I remember those steps. Like I said, it was just one person doing it and that may have just been a staff member testing it out. But everyone else was patiently waiting their turn.

While I was wandering, I did get a nice elevated shot of the area. Everyone on the court in the below view is actually a staff member. Man, those people in line were very patient for such a hot day.

I saw the same sort of thing last year. I think that they actually had some WNBA players on hand at that event. I don’t know if they did at this one or not. It just didn’t interest me enough to wait around for who knows how long to find out.

-H

Categories: Events, Manhattan, Wanderings

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Waterfalls in New York City

June 28, 2008

It appears that some Danish/Icelandic artist by the name of Olafur Eliasson set up four waterfalls near Manhattan. I can now attest to two of them. I don’t know about the others.

I went down to the South Street Seaport today to take a look. I had seen the early setup of one of them on the Brooklyn Bridge so I knew where to start looking. Sure enough, there it was on the east side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s a nice waterfall, but it ain’t Niagara. Of course, that’d be way too expensive even for NYC. It looked a bit higher but less wide than the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall.

The second waterfall was on the Manhattan side of the East River.

I wasn’t in the ideal spot for watching. I noticed two variations of watching it. First, just to the south of the waterfall, there seemed to be a viewing area.

You can see by the next picture how good my zoom was for the picture. People were kicking back and relaxing on the third level of the South Street Seaport.

The other great way to see the waterfalls appeared to be by boat. The New York Water Taxi and some tour boats were doing a bang-up business taking people out there.

As I understand it, this will be going on for the next five months or so. Maybe I’ll get over to the other side to see it. But maybe not. Like I said, it’s no Niagara.

-H

Categories: Events, Hudson and East River Views, Manhattan, Wanderings

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2008 Mermaid Parade on Coney Island – Part 4

June 25, 2008

This is the fourth and last of my posts on the Mermaid Parade.

I don’t know what I really expected from the parade. More importantly, I don’t know what I got from the parade. Lots of skin, to be honest. There were some politics in there. Some showmanship. A bit of cleverness, but not enough. I guess I expected pretty much what I got: a parade that just reveled in being a parade with marchers that were a bit exhibitionistic and a little bit laid back.

For what it’s worth, I tell you one thing it lacked big time: excitement. I’ve gone to lots of parades and a good parade has a lot of music and a lot of crowd participation. Some of the marchers, especially those at the beginning, tried to rouse the crowd. But maybe it was too hot. Probably it was too silent. The times it worked? When there was a lot of music. The times it didn’t work? When the marchers were in their own little world and didn’t project to the crowd.

Back to the coverage…Stilt-walking woman with a Carmen Miranda hat and blue painted skin. Okay, that seems to sum up Coney Island for me.

Here’s another picture of the crowd, just to show that this is a pretty popular parade.

The next picture is at the end of a frenzy of picture taking. Almost every picture I took had another photographer in it. But I did catch a picture of the guillotine at the end of it. The part that was the big attraction: dancing Marie Antoinettes in high hair and short dresses. Maybe eight of them in total. What does it have to do with mermaids? They called it “Marine Antoinette”.

Okay, I have very little excuse for the next picture except I like it.

Perhaps the best costume of the day: Popeye. He got a few call outs from the crowd. Well, he is a sailor man so I guess he’s a fine addition to the Mermaid Parade.

You can’t read much on Famous Ankles without running into pictures of beauty queens and the like. Well, here’s Miss Use of Recycled Materials. Well done! Of course, you sure ain’t the normal “Miss” anything I post on, but I’m content with that.

It took me a moment to understand what the next group was doing. Okay, beyond the showgirl aspect. Their headgear is a salute to Coney Island rides. Nicely done. I just wish I had caught the one on the far right a moment earlier (she had the Cyclone on her head).

They were trying for whimsy (I guess). They were trying for funny (I suppose). They were trying for cleverness (I would hope). A cowgirl/mermaid and a viking? Come on folks. You didn’t hit any of them.

Here’s a float. It symbolizes…I haven’t any idea.

This is what a lull in the parade looked like. There was a crossing area right where the crowd is (where people could go from one side of the parade to the other to get, for example, from the beach to the food area). Those people are just encroaching on the parade route to get a picture.

Maybe the idea of a theme is too deep for this parade. The people below sure don’t seem wedded to the idea of depth and relevance.

I think the next group is just trying hard to make me wonder who they are supposed to be. Sea monster and can of tuna?

I’ve seen this group do stuff before. They take old Metro cards and glue them together for costumes and the like. Why? Heck if I know. But then, I don’t know what Aztecs and the Mermaid Parade have in common, either.

This young lady is loaded up with SPF 2000 or so. And a parasol.

I guess the “sea monster and the beauty” is something of a cultural constant, and here they are again.

I started feeling the heat so I left with maybe 30 minutes left in the parade. Hey, I was really wiped out. And then it took forever to get to the subway. That’s because the parade was still going on and I was inside the square that the parade was making going up to the Boardwalk, down it, then to the street and then back to the beginning point. The crowd on the street was huge. I’m really glad I stayed on the Boardwalk.

So, that’s the end of the parade for me. I left really tuckered out and a day later hadn’t gotten back to snuff. I’m not sure if I’d recommend the parade to others. Like I said at the beginning, I did edit out a lot of pictures to keep this safe for work. But it wasn’t salacious. Maybe it was trying, but it didn’t even reach that.

For what it’s worth: next year bring a lot more music and make the marchers be a little more than people walking down the Boardwalk. Oh, and keep the hula hoopers. You can never have too many of them.

-H

Categories: Events, Parades, Wanderings

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