It's all so overwhelming

Since it's thanksgiving break, I've been slacking off like nobody's business. I've been sleeping A LOT, which is really needed, but doesn't lend to productivity. Yesterday I went with a friend to chinatown because I REALLY REALLY wanted dim sum. Dim sum is essentially chinese brunch, but with food that's not at all breakfast-y. It's so delicious. Here's where we ended up:

Nom Wah Tea Parlor

We ordered way more food than we could ever eat, but it was great.

Today, I went to the MoMA. I figured since it was a weekday and I went right after they opened it wouldn't be too busy. I was so wrong. It was the busiest it's been of the three or four times I've gone. The place was packed with tourists and school groups. The MoMA is so overwhelming to me. There's so much to look at that I feel like I need to go there every day for like a month. At some point I just have to leave because I can't look at any more art.


I always enjoy seeing the hierarchy people create in museums.

A group looking at Van Gogh's Starry Night

No, no, I don't actually need to see that painting, feel free to just stand there listening to your audio guide and taking photos. I mean, it's not like you can find photos of it online or in books or anything. (Hypocritical, I know, since clearly I was taking photos)

Compared to:

The blatant lack of people in one of the Minimalist galleries. 

Anyway, I went today because they recently switched up their contemporary art exhibit and I wanted to see it. Actually, I really just wanted to see this:

Rirkrit Tiravanija's piece "Untitled (Free/Still)"

Apparently the artist turned an entire gallery into an exhibition space (including the offices and such) and used part of it as a kitchen and served free curry to everyone who came in. The MoMA recreated it in one of their galleries. In the picture above, the man with the stellar stache is telling us about it very awkwardly. He clearly was just reciting from a script that among other things, said something along the lines of "The food is free, the conversation is free, together with the sunlight streaming in the windows..." 

The curry was actually pretty good, and I chatted with some man, who, after I sat down mentioned that we were supposed to have "free conversation."  

I've also wanted to see this Felix Gonzalez-Torres piece for a while:

The MoMA is right off of 5th Ave, so after my escapades there I decided it was a perfect time to go on a shopping spree. I trekked down 5th Ave, and as usual when I go shopping, ended up buying things I don't really need, and not getting what I do need. All the stores on 5th Ave are huge. Every place I went was completely overwhelming, with multiple, large floors. 

This is the flagship Uniqlo store. I don't know why the US doesn't have more of these, they're AWESOME.

Sweaters in every color EVER. 

You probably can't tell from this picture, but this place just keeps going, and going, and going. 

And, as an added bonus, they have plastic covers for your bag when it's raining. How thoughtful. 

One last thing I love about New York. Everything is constantly changing. 

What? You haven't been to Bryant Park in a couple of weeks? There's now an ice rink, an indoor/outdoor restaurant and like 50 pop-up shops. Surprise!

In which I attempt to make up for the lameness that was the beginning of my semester

Okay, as you may have gleaned from that title and/or my previous blog posts, I haven't done as much fun stuff in New York as I'd like. I have, however, spent a lot of time folding paper. After a brief stint merely cutting and gluing paper, I decided I actually really hated it. So back to cutting and gluing and folding. Apparently the folding makes all the difference.

Look at all those cute little paper pyramids

I've made it a point to do some fun things, rather than spend all my time making art.

A couple weeks ago a bunch of us decided to get up at 3:15 in the morning and go to the Today Show. Why did we get up so early, you ask? Because Coldplay was playing live in Rockefeller Plaza. Despite the huge line already there, we managed to get fairly decent spots after almost getting trampled numerous times. It was completely worth my lost sleep. Coldplay was super great live, they played some of their most popular songs, as well as some new ones. Let's be honest, I don't like Coldplay enough to actually buy a ticket to one of their concerts, but I do enjoy them, so seeing them for free was pretty great. Seeing the Today show live was cool too, although most of the time they were in their studio, not outside where we were.

Not the picture I meant to upload, but close enough. This was before the line got super crazy.

I know you can't tell, but I'm fairly certain Coldplay is up there. You're just going to have to take my work for it. 

This week has been jam-packed with awesomeness. Saturday I went to Carnegie Hall, to see the Budapest Festival Orchestra. They did not disappoint.

Yeah, we were basically at the very top, and we had to hike up like 20 flights of stairs to get there, but for $10 I can't complain too much.

Monday was obviously Halloween, which apparently is a huge deal in New York. We went to the parade, but couldn't get very close because of the massive amounts of people watching it. Basically we just wandered around looking at people's costumes, as there were huge crowds of people in costume all around the parade route. 

Leslie Hall and Andy Warhol. Both winning costumes in my opinion. 

You know, took some photos with random people...

And a random person's rabbit...

We saw enough sexy bunnies and cats to last a lifetime. If you want to be a sexy animal, that's fine, really, just be something more interesting than a bunny. Like an aardvark. Or a platypus. 

Tuesday my friend randomly called me during the day and asked if I wanted to go to the Colbert Report. She had randomly gotten tickets that day, so I dropped all plans of doing anything productive. It was a great decision. Colbert was super fun live. Yo-yo Ma was on the show, which was SO FREAKING EXCITING. I sort of love Yo-yo Ma, and have wanted to see him play live for kind of a while. He and three other people just came out with an album called The Goat Rodeo Sessions, and they played a couple of songs from it. I didn't like this song as much as this one, but I very much enjoyed Steven Colbert's intro to it and how much the band is loving it.

Thursday I went to The Phantom of the Opera, which was my first broadway show ever. It was pretty bomb.

Monsieur Andre, looking much happier than I would be if I were soliciting donations from theatergoers.

We're now debating if we want to go see Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Although I desperately want to go see The Book of Mormon, I'm pretty sure it's been sold out for quite a while. Tragic, I know.

Now, back to the art making.