Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 16 Location: CT, USA (right outside of NYC)
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:23 pm Post subject:
Quote:
Samantha-
I think that will be the very best way to see them. From the habitual/absence, to the contstruction, to the actuality, to the deconstruction, to the "normal"/abscence.
I'd soooo love to hear your perspectives on it.
PS I think there are going to be 7,500-7,600 gates! A staggering concept!
Rainey, I agree... what a nice way to think about it. The Upper West Side of NYC is our home away from home, and eventually I am sure we will live there (once we can afford a place with a big kitchen and a balcony or a rooftop garden - dare to dream, right!).
We usually head into the city on one or both days of the weekend, so we'll be there on Saturday. I'll be sure to post on Monday or Tuesday. Actually Tuesday, we're going to the Westminister Dog Show on Monday - how fun!
There's lots of cities that I love, but New York is something special. A favorite quote from the movie 'Keeping the Faith'...
"People who don't live in NYC must be, in some way, kidding themselves."
My husband and I considered moving to Boston about a year ago, and while we adore Boston (Cambridge in particular), we have really made a home here. Besides our friends here, the city is this living, breathing entity that gets inside of your soul and changes the way you see yourself, the way you see it... the city... oh, I'm waxing poetic aren't I? ha ha That's the Creative Writing major in me.
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 2498 Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 5:29 pm Post subject:
Samantha- Wonderful! I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts and perhaps seeing a photo or two!
As for NYC, I grew up in Poughkeepsie and my knowledge of NYC is from short visits. The Bicentennial is the one that will stand out forever in my memory. It was spectacular! It was magic! But the special charms of NYC have not ensnared me.
MY b-i-l, on the other hand, knows exactly what you're saying. He's an artist and spends his whole Summer every year living and painting on a small, rural island in Maine (my personal idea of heaven) but would never consider any place but NYC "home" despite a rural, upstate NY upbringing.
I live in LA. If I have to live in a city (and it can't be Vancouver), LA is the one I choose. Although I have acess to almost anything the mind can imagine, I still have a spacious home with a yard big enough for my kitchen garden with hawks, the occasional visiting coyote and a neighbor horse and chickens. Sometimes I contemplate putting in my own henhouse and adopting a few chickens. For "city life" this is remarkably like living in pastoral sub-suburbs with the amenities readily at hand.
The great part of this story, tho, is that there is a world of possibilities for each of us and we seem to turn up where we belong.
Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 16 Location: CT, USA (right outside of NYC)
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 5:55 pm Post subject:
Rainey,
Small world... I went to Culinary School in Hyde Park, NY (met my husband there too)... though I wouldn't call that upstate NY. I grew up more upstate NY than Poughkeepsie, and went to college up there too (Hamilton College).
And I've never been to LA, but have a wedding to attend this May. You'll have to let me know what to do while there, I think we'll be there for a long weekend. My main knowledge of LA is from one of my favorite movies... LA Story with Steve Martin. Not very factual, I know, but it is a great movie and it always makes me smile.
I love the idea of turning up where we belong. After growing up in a very small town, and going to college in an even smaller town, I hated NYC my first few visits. But after spending more and more time there, learning about all of the distinct neighborhoods, finding favorite places to walk, to shop, to eat (always!)... I'm in love with the city even more with every visit.
Thank goodness we got a new digital camera last fall... it'll be easy to post pictures from the weekend!
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 2498 Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 8:53 pm Post subject:
Samantha-
You made me chuckle, babe!
I left Poughkeepsie shorthly after the CIA moved into St. Andrews so I missed the opportunity to take advantage of all that talent. ::sniff, sniff:: But "chapeau," ma petite! I hope you had the opportunity to see all the grand houses up and down the river!
My reference to "upstate" smacks of Steinberg, but it's all relative,no? I went to school up in Binghamton myself and my husband and b-i-l are from the Rochester area so we've got one or two bases covered.
I'll watch the papers for what's to see and do when you expect to be here. For me, it's digging in my own backyard and trolling the local nurseries or getting things dirty in the kitchen. I'm an old stick-in-the-mud but we'll find some good stuff for you!
staggering in their beauty
the wonder of sharing the planet with Christo...this IS a special time, and we would be wise to remember this...to those who say why?...well, why to the tiniest leaf on a tree in the Blue Mountains...a short distance from where I live...why...
this imagination....these gates, as I look at the sketches, remind me of Christo himself...the breeze flows through him....he's not locked away ....here there everywhere...
we could Christo our temperaments maybe...that would be fun...to Christo our beliefs, our certainties, our 'this is the way it's to bes'...
let me gaze in wonder at these sketches anew...
lucky visitors to the park!....Erin, Judy, the tickets haven't arrived as yet..any news?...SOMEONE must know Donald.... might get out the prayer wheel!!!! _________________ "I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson
there seem to be enough gates for all chocolate and zucchinites to amble through..
how about a cyberwalk...a cybermooch...a cyberamble...
my heart is so excited by what's happening in that Park...there's more to this than simply meets the eye...that's what I'm feeling..
Don seems to be leaving it until the last minute...maybe he'd contacted you Judy... _________________ "I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson
Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:56 pm Post subject:
Judy ... Thanks for the jok link for the day-to-day photo update on the gates. It's a nice addition to the Christo site. I've just passed it on to our 'covey' of friends and loved ones who will be joining us in NYC over several days to experience and photograpgh the scene. This all works so well with our yearly 'must get to NYC again' thing.
Good look to you all with Donald. Hope he pulls through.
This is my firt post to Chocolate & Zucchini ... great site and conversation. _________________ Host of "Gardens, Food & Santa Fe"
KSFR Radio (90.7) Streaming - www.ksfr.org
Saturdays @ 12:20-1:00 pm MST
I have to admit I don't always "get" Christo but the sketches of this installation really work for me. Sadly no chance of actually seeing it as we won't be going to NYC until June.
And how I envy Samantha going to the Westminster Dog Show!
And a warm welcome RWR, this is a very pleasant place to be. _________________ Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Judy! It's a joy: well written, beautifully photographed, captures the excitement and transformation of a Christo & Jeanne-Claude installation.
I'm so grateful you shared the link.
Is it your own (gasp!) or were you the lucky finder of such a treasure?
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 2498 Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:46 pm Post subject:
David wrote:
I have to admit I don't always "get" Christo but the sketches of this installation really work for me. Sadly no chance of actually seeing it as we won't be going to NYC until June.
And how I envy Samantha going to the Westminster Dog Show!
And a warm welcome RWR, this is a very pleasant place to be.
David- I completely hear and understand you. But, I hafta tell you that a Christo/Jeanne-Claude piece is not something you "get" but something you have to "experience". Or maybe the better way to put it is you have to "experience" it to "get" it.
I know that was how it was for me and I heard that over and over again from people who felt the same way before they went to their first one. Afterward, so many of them travelled to each subsequent one they could.
Their work is so much more massive than most of us can imagine until we see the visual. Still, prior to the unveiling, it's far more than the visual. This is primarily (I would guess) the conception, commerce and engineering of it. And it's immeasurably more again once it is unveiled. This is the art of changing the accepted & habitual into the transformed and involves transforming the viewer & the participant as much as the landscape.
It's a little bit as though, using cloth and hardware, they are momentarily able to put a frame around Life.
I know all this sounds like babbling -- über-nonsence. But I hope you'll have a chance one day to see some installation. Then I'd love to hear your reaction.
The one I saw (half of; taking place simultaneously in SoCal and Japan) was soooo comprehensive that it included two deaths. Certainly these were serindipidous sad events but the project was so enormous, so tied to the inevitibility of Life that these deaths that occurred both in SoCal and in Japan were a tragically and dramatically appropriate part of the work.
Forgive my inarticulate ramblings and plan to form your own assessments if you ever can.
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 1196 Location: buried under a pile of books somewhere in Adelaide, South Australia
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 8:11 am Post subject:
no Rainey, the diary is not my own. It is from the webmaster of the christo-jeanneclaude website. He is working at the site. I found it via Christo's website but the link has now been removed, which is unfortunate as it limits the amount of web traffic to the daily progess of the project. I hope it also includes the dismantling of the work.
RWR, welcome and thanks for passing jok's URL on to your friends. Please tell them about us and Clotilde's beautiful C&Z site too. And please, please, please tell us about your visit(s) to the gates. I want to see this marvel through as many eyes as possible.
Rainey, I think I understand what you're saying about 'experiencing' it. Not at all the same, but I felt and still feel, the same way about the first total eclipse I experienced. We travelled to Lyndhurst in the Flinders Ranges many hours north of Adelaide and found a spot on our own in the outback to view the event. You had to be thereto 'get it, but it was such a special moment. I'd love to see another one sometime during my lifetime.
Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 2:20 pm Post subject: Gates, C&Z Site
Judy & all ... The jok site (http://jchurch.net/) is indeed fun and the daily review of photos and narrative certainly adds to the anticipation. We're getting pretty jazzed about the trip. I encourage all who visit the site to give encouraging feedback to both Jok & Kaz ... think they need it and like it.
Clotilde's Chocolate & Zucchini and all of you participants will be getting some good attention on our radio program here in Santa Fe, NM (and streaming on the net) that I produce called Gardens, Food & Santa Fe... starting this coming Saturday. This is one of the coolest food sites I've been to and I look forward to sharing it. _________________ Host of "Gardens, Food & Santa Fe"
KSFR Radio (90.7) Streaming - www.ksfr.org
Saturdays @ 12:20-1:00 pm MST
Wow, Rainey--- you have a way with words! Thanks,i will definitely be paying more attention to this installation! _________________ Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!
Joined: 22 Nov 2004 Posts: 16 Location: CT, USA (right outside of NYC)
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:29 pm Post subject:
Quote:
I have to admit I don't always "get" Christo but the sketches of this installation really work for me. Sadly no chance of actually seeing it as we won't be going to NYC until June.
And how I envy Samantha going to the Westminster Dog Show!
I know David, we're excited to go see the cute dogs. We had been meaning to go for years, and our friend finally just went ahead and got tickets. If I take any pictures I'll let you know.
And do let me know how long you'll be in NYC for this June... I can def. suggest some places to eat, and some fun things to do. I don't usually recommend all of the tourist spots, those are easy to find out about. I can suggest other places to go, things to do, places to eat and shop for food.
Quote:
I'll watch the papers for what's to see and do when you expect to be here. For me, it's digging in my own backyard and trolling the local nurseries or getting things dirty in the kitchen. I'm an old stick-in-the-mud but we'll find some good stuff for you!
And thanks Rainey, I look forward to seeing your home city!
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I grew up more upstate NY than Poughkeepsie, and went to college up there too (Hamilton College).
