Musings from the God of Cities

"woot.com is an online store and community run by the employees of a 10 year old consumer electronics distributor that focuses on close-outs and generally buying stuff cheap. Since the distributor doesn’t sell to end users, Woot, Inc provides us with an employee-store slash market-testing type of place. Hopefully the boss won’t take notice. We anticipate profitability by 2043 -- by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices."

(i apologize if this is old news to anyone, but i just heard about it like 20 minutes ago...)

earlier this week... wednesday, i think it was... shagura, cobracamanda and i

decided to play hookey (hookie? hooky?) and went to the brooklyn botanical gardens.


while there were a good deal of plants flowering outside...



















it was apparently too early to see most of the outside plants blooming. however, there were still some pretty neat plants and other things to see like...

baby ferns...






horny turtles...




lots of plants in the indoor displays...














and of course, good friends willing to ham it up a bit for the camera...




who could ask for anything more?

(for the further adventures of shagura, cobracamanda and i at the gardens, clickety-clack here.)

having threatened to make this blog more art-centric, i spent last weekend snapping pictures of some fun public art around manhattan...

unusual animal sculpture at st. john the divine:



stone head, a few blocks from the met:



metal wheel, just outside of dorrian's red hand (where the preppie killer met his ill-fated victim!)



fun “walking” sculpture, uppah east side:



lil’ bushie, also uppah east side:



sculpture of what i’m assuming is two people embracing...


...found at 49th and 2nd which, i was surprised to discover, is also known as Katherine Hepburn place:



brass wheel sculpture, midtown:



two sculptures in union square that are either new, or i just never noticed them (i to tend to have my head in the clouds quite a bit):






pixilated face, n.o.l.i.t.a:





and finally, the mural outside of the japan society advertising their little boy exhibit...















...and the panty-wearing elephant sculptures by chinatsu ban that had been put up in central park to coincide with the show. i thought it was a shame that even though the statues had been up for barely a week or so when i went to see them, they were somewhat dirty, chipped, and sporting a bit of graffiti:

"[rapper foxy brown] ...dismissed the idea that she would try to skip out on paying. "a $20 pedicure? are you serious? look at me," brown said, sporting chanel sunglasses, translucent white nail polish and a dolce & gabbana bag."

goldberg, superfriend and lover of fine literature, just got 2 new tattoos and was nice enough to share them with me, and by extension, you all...

the design was from showcase #75, the first appearance of the original hawk and dove:

a few weeks ago, dw and i went to p.s.1


to see its "greater new york" show


through the magic of a press pass (membership has its privilege... as does sleeping with someone with membership.) i managed to snap picture of some stuff i thought was fun. try to match up the artists with the works i took pictures of! (mostly 'cause i took shitty notes that i don't feel like deciphering at this point in time.)

given the nature of p.s.1 in general, and the show, specifically, there was a pretty mixed bag of stuff to see...

these were made with pictures and bits of color from postage stamps:




these were intricate cut-outs in bags from fancy stores:






continuing in the teensy-weensy theme, were these small doll-house-like structures:




one of which contained a doll-house of its own:


but it wasn't all miniatures, as evidenced by this huge mushroom:


there were lots people lazing around:








and some people standing around:












there were some animals:








and all kinds of other






cool




shit








including some art by the same folks whose art i'd seen before:












my most favoritest thing there, though was probably the artist who sat behind a wall with his hand through a hole (get your minds out of the gutters, kids!) and moved it every once in a while, to their surprise and horror (and my schadenfreudean delight):






also notable are the permanent decorative arty flourishes throughout p.s.1, like this in the bathroom:




and all of this stuff in the staircases:


though to be fair, i thought the "you just don't get it dad..." isn't nearly as cool as these black-and-white trees and birds:










these moths:




or these pieces:














and finally, i spotted this just outside of p.s.1:




possibly made by a banksy wannabe who lost his nerve and decided to just leave his art outside.

oh, one last thing before i forget... about 4 or 5 people from different parts of europe have found their way to this picture:


from the last time i went to p.s.1. i ain't mad at you euros, but i'm just curious as to why you've all got such a collective boner for that picture. anyone feel kind enough to let me in on what the deal is?