[trip-list] New York

[drewish@katherinehouse.com]

I've had a plesant time in New York. I've been able to do almost all of the things I really wanted to do/see while I was here. I went to the Mueseam of Modern Art, saw the Statue of Liberty, bummed around the city and caught a couple plays with my dad. I wanted to get over to Coney Island but since I spent a day sitting around in various parks reading Jack Kerovac's On The Road (Bill Spaceman loaned it to me before leaving Portland, he seemed to think it appropriate) it didn't happen. 

MoMA was great, seeing the big name stuff was a bit underwhelming but they had an exibit called Tempo dealing with various aspects of time that I really liked. Some of the tech-ed out sculptures and multimedia stuff I could get into first on a technical level and then on a conceptual level. I was supprised to find myself thinking about them a few days later, it's actually got me thinking about taking some art classes.

Theater I've got mixed feelings about. The first night we saw "The Graduate" with Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone and it was wonderful. Two nights ago was "Oaklahoma", everything was done beautifully--heck they even had a full orchestra. I just dont't like musicals (Hedwig and the Angry Inch being the ONLY exception), every time the forward motion of the plot gets stalled so they can launch into a song I start to loose interest. All through the show I kept flashing back to my brother's elementary school production of "Oaklahoma", he sang those songs for months, mostly because it drove me crazy. I'm sure I'll be belting out "Oh the famer and the cowman should be friends..." as I'm riding south. Last night we saw "Top Dog/Underdog" a two man dark comedy, about two brothers one named Booth and the other Lincoln. Man oh man it was good. I'd picked it almost by accident, after waiting in line at the discount ticket booth for an hour I had only a minute in front of the sign!
 showing available tickets. At the window I just asked what they had available that wasn't a musical, for some reason I liked the name. 

Everything in this town if god-awful expensive. Even a crapy dinner will set you back $10-15 a head. I did most of my eating on the complimentary breakfast and evening hordervs the fancy hotel my dad got provides. I'm glad he paid for the plays otherwise I'd have probably been sitting in some crappy commedy club listening to "You know what really bothers me?" over and over. 

One thing I really dig (hear that Kerovac) is the subways, I'd ridden them before in other cities but this time I was the one in charge of getting myself lost (and boy can you). It's probably the only deal in town. I could ride around for hours talking to the crazy Vietnam vets and looking at all the pretty girls. 

Walking around town people seemed to get a kick out of the cowboy hat and sideburns. The people passing out flyers keep calling out "Hey Billy Bob!", Texas kept getting brought up in conversations and I'd see guys took over then start rubbing their jaw as they looked away. Riding in on the A train from the airport I looked over and got a kick out of watching two guys air-lasso-ing and making like they're riding horses at me. 

Today it's back to Portland and trying to find a place to live. Hopefully I'll get the photos sorted through and posted before I leave on the next part of the bike riding.

andrew

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