Musings from the God of Cities

continuing in my exhaustive coverage of my weekend in philly, here are some pictures of some public art in philadelphia:

a mural, "history of the world" by tom judd


the famous "love" sculpture by robert indiana at jfk plaza




i want to say that the oddest bit of public art i saw was "your move" by daniel martinez, renee petropoulos, and roger white, which is composed of large game pieces (monopoly, bingo, sorry, chess, and dominoes) scattered around a plaza...








but that honor goes to this piece, by 10th grader collie mills hanging outside of a firestation

fire is wack, yo!

tt: philadelphia, public art, art

graffitied prince posters, 3rd ave, murray hill, nyc, march 2006.

gorging on meat 'n' cheese wasn't the only reason the manpanion and i went to philly. in order to keep our homosexualist licenses valid, we gayed it up a notch by going to the philadelphia flower show. make all the jokes you want, but i thoroughly enjoyed myself. all through my childhood, and still today, my parents' house was full of plants that my mother cared for, and we always had a garden like the good immigrants we are. while i didn't inherit my mother's green thumb, i did develop an appreciation for plants and flowers, hence my flower show attendance. that said, here are some highlights:

first of all, of course, were the plants and flowers on display, like




these orchids




these cacti


and this succulent

oddly enough, the philly flower show isn't just about flowers. at least not flowers per se. it's also about creating weird and random shit with flowers, plants and seeds. por ejemplo,

animals made out of flowers and plants like this flower-tiger


and this plant dragon.

there were also competitions for people who created all sorts of crafty things from plant materials, such as these flower collages made with petals and leaves,







(this mantis collage was my favorite.)

these pieces of jewelry were made out of seeds, twigs, and other planty things








there was also a competition for small sculptures made from plant material



i heard two separate people refer to the type of seed used to make this sculpture as a
"monkey ball" which made me snicker like the 10 year old i am underneath all the back hair and male pattern baldness.

and speaking of balls, someone strapped on a large pair and submitted this sculpture into the competition

don't worry folks, it was made out of weeds, and not actual weed. the judge's comment on the piece was "components compliment each other. placement of plant material divides design." the piece won second place, which means that the judges either didn't know what the piece depicted, or they were trying to make the show more appealing and relevant to a younger, hipper, stoner-ier crowd. i guess we'll never know...

tt: flowers, philadelphia flower show, philadelphia

mexican pride. spring street, soho, nyc, march 20th, 2006.

tt: art, graffiti

dw and i recently went to philadelphia for the weekend. it had been a while since we'd been on vay-cay, and philly is close and kinda cool, so... ta-da. one of the main reasons i'd wanted to go to the city of brotherly love is to get my grubby mitts on some real-life, honest-to-goodness philly cheese-steaks. i didn't want to fuck around, so i went to the two most philly-est of philly cheesesteakeries, geno's


and pat's king of steaks


apparently there's some kind of rivalry between the two, which seems somewhat ridiculous as pat's had what was clearly the more delicious of the two cheesesteaks

it was juicier, and more flavorful than genos.

though to be fair, the cheese steak we got at pat's had cheez whiz on it

while the one we got at geno's had provolone, so that might have affected its relative deliciousness.

i got a little nervous about not ordering properly


but i managed to keep my cool, and was able to order without making a misteak


tt: food, Philadelphia

23rd and 3rd, manhattan, nyc, march 2006

once again the armory show (a collection of hundreds of galleries from around the world getting together to display their wares.) has reared its artful, beer-shaped head.



and once again, i decided to go check it out and show y'all what i felt were highlights. here they is. enjoy!


this painting depicted a prosciutto (sorry folks, i gotta keep it real by keeping it real italian) being pecked at by a murder of crows, what you can't necessarily tell is that the crows are actually pulling what look like chunks of bloody meat off of the painting. pretty neat.

continuing the theme of gore, were


this deer skull


these shot-through heads.


and this maggoty skeleton

but the armory show isn't just about carrion, it's also about sexiness. par example this painting


the writing says, "This shows Miss Siegle's pussy, which we love. It smells bad but good. God, we love fucking her. Thank you for her."


and this piece, (which, i believe is by patricia piccinini) and is as sexy coming...


...as it is going. uhm, may i please have some fries with that shake?

there were paintings and drawerings













there were sculptures and figures of people


















what happened to andraé?

and everything in between











tt: armory+show, art

Labels: armory (fo') sho'

nj transit, trenton new jersey, march 12, 2006

quincy market, boston, 2005

i love this guy for loving his dog

click here for detail.

today marks my and dantewoo's 3 anniversary of manpanionship. in honor of that, i present to you one of the first pictures of he and i together...

brooklyn, ny, march 2003

...and one of the sexiest

seaside heights, nj, summer 200...3? 4?

table art, corner bistro, new york city, march 2, 2006.