Musings from the God of Cities

a little over a month ago i went to check out the new york chocolate show. i'd never been to one, nor did i know anyone who'd been to one, so i wasn't really sure what to expect outside of, well... chocolate. (and presumably, lots of it!) i got there only about fifteen minutes after it opened, and got my first surprises: a huge line and a twenty dollar admission fee. WTF?!?! the cheapskate in me wanted to fuck off, but the stoner in me was hungry from having waked and baked. needless to say, i went into the show


once inside, i quickly figured out that the show was a collection of chocolate vendors getting together to lull people into a semi-euphoric state by cramming endless amounts of free chocolate down their gullets in hopes that they would buy enough of their product to offset the price of the samples. the prices of most of the chocolate there was a touch high, and the price of admission was pretty steep so i didn't buy anything. i did, however manage eat enough chocolate to take down an elephant. in between shovelling handfuls of chocolate-covered potato-chips and the like, i noticed that the show also had loads of wacky creations made by chocotastic artisans. i figured i'd share some of the pictures i took of the chocolate art from the show as a respite from the more standard mediums of art i've been posting here lately.

there were chocolate mask displays:






chocolate sculptures:






chocolate paintings





i talked to this guy for a minute because i felt bad that there was no one at his booth, even though everyone else's booths were brimming with activity. he insisted that i smell his paintings to verify that they were indeed 100% chocolate, and then asked me if i, too, was an artist. i said no. "are you a chocolatier?" no. "pastry chef?" nope, sorry. "then you're a baker, right?" uh, no. not really sure where he was going with his line of questioning, i decided i had to change the subject before he could ask me if i was a gummi artisan who worked exclusively in the medium of gummi. therefore, i asked him how he got started working with chocolate. he then launched into a very obviously canned diatribe about needing a gimmick to make it in the competitive new york art world and some other crap that i missed because by that point i started stuffing my ears with chocolate chips.

rounding out the chocolate art, the most impressive stuff i saw was the chocolate clothing:














god bless the cocoa bean.

it truly is a magical fruit.