Musings from the God of Cities

i don't know why gorillas eat their own poop...



but i sure am glad they do.

the bronx zoo has peacocks walking freely around the grounds...


...who have a taste for french fries:

one of the things that makes me me is my love of comics. i've been reading comics since i was about 4 and taught myself to read italian by poring over my brother's old marvel comics during long summers back in the old country. i never really looked back, and now have more comics than a man my age really ought to. despite all this, i'd never been to a comic book convention. so, when good ole goldberg suggested we go to the big apple comic convention, i happily agreed. here are some of the notable things i saw at the con:

incredibly famous celebrities such as:


former monkee peter tork


and daniel logan, the lil' dude who played young boba fett

adults dressed up like fictional characters:


goldberg with boba fett. (the antenna on his head allows him to call his mother to come pick him up.)


goldberg with the power girl of... earth prime? earth-c-minus? earth-12? i never could get the dc multiverse straight.

there was also tons of merchandise which made me wish that i was rich and had some kind of tesseract house where i could keep oodles and oodles of useless crap and never run out of room:














these decals reminded me of how several years ago i thought it'd be cool to get a tattoo of the cobra logo from g.i.joe, but never did. i was glad i didn't when i went to the now defunct krazyfest a few years ago and saw literally about 7 or 8 kids with that tattoo.

this being a comic con, there were obviously comics, including marvel spotlight #32:


the first appearance of (the original) spider-woman, jessica drew. i take some small amount of... pride? less shame? in the fact that i managed to track down and acquire all of her appearances in the funny books before she became the marvel darling that she is now.

by the end of the day i was left with the feeling that the con, as a whole, was a bit of a let-down. the space the con was in was super-crowded and difficult to navigate, all of the merchants had a lot of the same stuff, and everything was priced kinda high (especially the entrance fee) for my cheapskate ass. that said, i did come away with a few good finds, despite the fact that i've put myself on a bit of a budget when it comes to comics and comic-related memorabilia. so, while i wound up buying full runs of "all star squadron" and "infinity inc.", i couldn't justify spending $40 to own the closest thing that most of the fan-boys at the con would ever get to seeing a woman's breasts:

Labels: comixxx

this is what i saw on the way to work:







this has nothing to do with the strike, but i did see this scene on my way to work this morning. also, there's precious little i love more in the world than a dog holding another dog's leash.

this is what i saw on the way home:

further reasons to be thankful you don't live in long island or new jersey (as if any more were needed)... crowd at 34th street, between 7th and 8th lining up to get into penn station.




again, this has nothing to do with the strike, bit i did see it on my walk home from work. so shut up or hulk smash.

this is what i saw on the way to work:


this is what i saw on the way home:

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.

"...second, try spending more time engaged in activities that don't require your thighs to meet."

the last set in my series of endless pictures from venerable new york art institions was taken at the metropolitan museum of art (the met to friends). what's most mindblowing to me about the museum is just how much of such a great variety of art they have. here's a sampler:

these are the seven deadly sins. when the guard saw me taking pictures of them he asked me what the paintings depeicted. for a second i thought he was some kindly old dude who liked talking to patrons about their interpretations of the paintings he'd been staring at for years. the confused look on his face, though, told me that he just had no idea what the paintings were showing. i thought of saying "you know that movie with brad pitt, the one with all the murders? no, not kalifornia..." but then gave him a more straighforward explanation.

wrath


vanity


lust


gluttony


envy


avarice


sloth

these were some other paintings
























sculptures and statues and stuff






































pottery and glassware, including a temporary cameo exhibit


















arms and armor










and everything in between

grand central station, lit up red. HOLY FUCK, i love new york!