So Sunday the snow stopped falling and I went out to assess what there was to see. This is just outside my condo...
So is this....
A tromp through the park seemed in order....
And what good is snow without a snowman.... in this case... I built one on the playground. He/She would be later dubbed 'Snowy' so here are Snowy's adventures!
Snowy & The Dolphin...
SLIDES!!
Peek A Boo
Where does this tunnel go??
Three Snowballs ! I win!
But Snowy was not big enough to reach everything.... not even on a pile of extra snow...
Even with longer limbs!!
Luckily Christina, William and Daniel stopped by and helped out! Christina (on the right) also dubbed the snowman 'Snowy'.
With that, the playing is done and Snowy had maybe played too hard.... It looks like there may be some melting happening... Time for a break to.... well... cool off...
So, of course... the year I move to NJ, they get a hurricane in NYC and now record snow in October... No... not it is not all my fault!!! But I do have pictures!
A Florida car not sure what to do with that white stuff....
How does one learn to drive in the snow... just do it.....
And watch out for the trees!
I did well. I did not hit anything... a little slipping and sliding here and there, but I got a good feel for it....
So.... last night I brought in a snowball for the squirrels! I brought a big snowball in with a branch in it... It seemed a little intimidating to Amelia
So then I gave Amelia a little piece of snow and she liked it... and ate a lot of it....
I can't imagine grinding my teeth through the ice, but she did.
And so this is the view out my window this morning..
So Saturday night I went to see the Exquisite Corpse Festival that I had heard about when I was out looking for art on Friday.
The short version of the evening is that it was a series of performing arts pieces done with the Exquisite Corpse theme - based on an old surrealist parlor game.
For example, one playwright would start a play, the second would get the last three lines or so of the first script and have to write the next five pages off of just those three lines. The next playwright would get just the last three lines of that second script.... you get the idea.
Or you can listen to the founder, Jason Tyne-Zimmerman, one of the playwrights, Shalini Tripathi, and Actor Chris O'Neil give you a better explanation and their experiences in this 5+ minute interview segment I did with them...
Shorter versions of this are running on FM NEWS 101.9 today.
Ok, so my picks from the show?
#3 The first play - " Plus ca Change" - The animated couples scene, with the heads of the actors sticking out through the curtain and the animation taking place around them on it. It was really a fun way to play with the script.
#2 The Addler - it's improv but Exquisite Corpse Style - where the actors cannot hear each other but still have to try and interact for a long scene. See this picture -
Notice they have iPods on and headbands over them, keeping them from hearing each other.
It was quite the wild way to do improv! and from a spectator standpoint, very funny to see how they were interpreting the actions of others without being able to hear their words.
And of course, #1 - The birds scene in Au Revoir that was mentioned in the interview! Cate Bottiglione was an adorable Sparrow and Josh Hyman was the best Pigeon I've ever seen. And it didn't hurt that the script made me giggle, a lot!
The Exquisite Corpse Festival goes through the 22nd at the Richmond Sheppard Theater on 26th St with shows at 8pm Wednesday through Saturday. But get there early. There is pre-show live music starting at 7:30!
I told you last week how the Art in Odd Places event send me home with three pieces of art. Well, one of them was from SeeMeTellMe. I started following her blog and found she was about to release another set of pieces of art to celebrate the Exquisite Corpse Festival. I had no idea what the festival was... but I wanted to see the pieces she put out and decide if one should follow me home.
The pieces had been placed on a fence outside the theater
There were 25 in all, and I am going to show you a close up of all of them, because it seems that when the rain came later in the afternoon they all disappeared... Either someone took them or tried to save them from the rain or something, but they are all gone...all but one...
When I say all but one disappeared that is because the one at the far end, the one flapped up in the breeze in the picture above, had a nice tribal feel and I went back later to take it home with me... that was not long before the clouds rolled in... This is the one I took it's 6/25....and perhaps the only one that made it out into the public. That really saddens me because they were really beautiful pieces that I think could have made a lot of people smile.
It now joins the other pieces of art I have collected recently on my desk that greet me every day.
Ok, so back to my arrival at the Richmond Shepherd Theater to see the art pieces. When I arrived there was someone else looking over them. It was Jason Tyne-Zimmerman. He just happens to be the Artistic Director and founder of the Exquisite Corpse Festival. He asked if I knew about it. I said no, but that I would like to, and got the run down....
The short version is it is an event where they take three artists using the same medium and have them collaborate on a project. Ok, collaborate may not be the right word. They don't get to see or know what the others are doing, for the most part, but have to create a part of the work... It's quite the unique concept.
And he showed me a taxidermy piece that illustrates the idea. It was.... well... I'll let you come up with a word yourself. I am not sure I had one... I give you the.... umm.... Durabboon????
I did say I was not a taxidermy and hunting fan, but I was told he understood, and was a vegetarian, but that these were all 'found 'pieces, meaning they were not hunted, but found dead.... and that made me feel a little better... but still... hmmm... I'm not sure what to think.
Anyways, after I stared in bewilderment at the Durabboon for a while he told me I should come back to the festival (which was NOT taxidermy, but all performing arts) one evening... which I did... but I'll give you that review later...
So there was one piece of art last weekend that I became a part of. It was called a Silent Sky. The artist Robert Sweere.
Has been shooting images of people laying silently, looking at the sky (or just laying there with their eyes closed) all over the world. I was part of picture number 47. I'd seen him do picture number 46 on Friday. Here's what that looked like.
Here were a couple pictures I took of him taking this shot.
The piece I was in was much smaller. There were two other women and I that took part Sarah, and Alexis.
Our job was simple, or so I thought,. We were supposed to lie on the ground, contemplate either looking at the sky or what not for 30 min. We were to lie silently and stay there unless we thought we were going to die or something. Simple enough, right?
Did I mention we're lying on the ground in Union Square?
That made for some interesting experiences as people were walking around us and we were trying to remain still and silent.
The first five minutes or so i must say I think i felt a little more panicked than anything else. Since i was on the ground looking up, i could see things moving around me, but not really see who was there or making noise around me. It was a little disconcerting.
But like anything else in life, after a little while you get used to the sounds and situation and relax...
There were some people who were trying to keep me from relaxing though. I remember three different people who wanted to disrupt what we were doing, even though they did not know what that was. The first was a woman that came up on my side and asked if we wanted a watermelon mint. Really? The second annoyance was a little more threatening. It was a man that came up on my side and started talking about us like pieces of meat and ended with 'wrap them up i'll take em all', and third a woman who walked up to my side (yes, again.. I seemed to draw the rude people) to try and interrupt me to ask me if I was meditating. And again I thought, really? You would interrupt someone that you thought might be meditating to ask? Really?
My main thought there was I was very surprised at how rude they were. I would never think of doing that to people. It's just rude.
There were other moments that were cute. I know I am in a lot of tourist's pictures. They would carefully walk up by us and snap a shot. They didn't know who we were or why we were there, but they wanted to have a picture with us.
I had another moment of panic relating to my boots. They were new and I was not sure if I had removed the little sticker from the store that had been on the bottom of them.... I found out later I hadn't, but it was ok, the picture he choose doesn't really show that. I know, how trivial is that? What can I say, I have my moments...
There were also just interesting moments where there was such contradiction while I was there – I was watching the leaves in the tree above me sway ever so slightly, in a mild breeze, while hearing the nonstop, super-busy bustle of the city around me. It was a really neat conflict of visual versus audio.
At the end of our 30 minutes Robert interviewed each of us as to what we were thinking and experiencing during the shoot. I'm pretty sure I said the same thing there as I have here. I am not sure what will become of that video, but it was pleasure being a part of his project.
As a post-shoot note, It also helped me meet Alexis and Sarah who are lovely ladies and invited me to Path Cafe in the Village, where I had a great dinner and enjoyed some fantastic acoustic music. But I suppose that is a blog for another day.
Friday morning, Oct 14th, I was sent out to cover Occupy Wall Street.I was up at 1:30 and on the grounds of Zuccotti park by 3am. The reason I was there so early was because the city was supposed to move in to make the protesters leave so the park owners could clean the park which has not been cleaned in about a month now.
When I arrived there was already a large crowd and over the next few hours, it just grew exponentially. How big was the crowd, you ask? well Zuccotti park is just under an acre, and there's a wide sidewalk all the way around it... and well here's a look at the area around 6am or so....
Better yet, here's a video.... it was a literal sea of people and there was barely any room to move.
Now, to their credit, the protesters, when told they would have to leave because the park was not being cleaned.... well... cleaned it. They had a cleaning station and I saw plenty of sweeping, mopping, trash details. After being there days before, I can tell you it also smelled a lot better.
Well word came down just before 7 that the protesters would not be asked to leave for the cleaning per park management and that they would work something out with the protesters. This led to lots of victory cheering, and some of us thought, ok, well, score one for the protesters.... what now?
That answer came very quickly. Someone called for a march on Wall Street. I heard a number of people calling for them not to march, to just take their victory, but they were outnumbered. So, after another 30 minutes or so of milling about, the crowd split into two and went both directions down Broadway. I went with the larger crowd...
It started peacefully enough, all the protesters marching down the sidewalk. The police were just fine with this, they had told everyone to stay on the sidewalk, and didn't mind if thousands of people were on the sidewalk.
One funny note here is coming up the sidewalk the other direction were a lot of business people heading to work. I can only describe their reaction when they saw the march as that of rats jumping off a sinking ship, they bolted in all directions for another path to work - suits running everywhere. It was just a funny image...
After a couple blocks on the sidewalk, things went from peaceful to confrontational. I heard a man yell 'Take the street! Take the street!" and the protesters did.
This of course was where the conflict started. They were now blocking intersections and traffic and the police came in with their motorbikes, lined like a wall, to try and push them back. You'll have to forgive the crappy video... as you can hear I was on the air live on one phone will videoing with an iPod... so give me a break.
Here's what I would like you to notice. Every time you see the crowd be pushed back by the police, notice how it surges forward again. You can even see some of the people waving forward for the crowd to keep surging. That only would get worse as the parade went on. It's actually pretty mild in this clip... it was the first surge and they got more confident as the march went on.
Eventually the protesters went around the police line and started streaming down the road again and it would happen all over again. About 5-6 blocks into the march, there was another round of storming the streets, and that's when I got my battle scar, or rather battle splash. An officer shoved a guy out of the street, towards the sidewalk and his cup of coffee and my hair and back got real friendly. I smelled like stale coffee for the rest of the day... lucky me.
So, moving on.... this is where things started to get a little uglier. There was more physical fighting between the police and protesters.
This video I think illustrates two different stories in one. I saw a clip of this video in many news reports. But it only shows the part where the officer has grabbed the guy in the striped shirt and is taking him down to claims the guy was peacefully protesting... Not so much.
Here's my video of it.... that shows WHY the officer is grabbing the guy in the striped shirt and taking him down. As a first protester is arrested on the right, the second guy comes through the crowd swinging at the officer who then grabs him and takes him to the ground.
There was a lot of this going on. As one protester would be arrested for something, others would grab them and try to pull them free of the police or push the police officers. I saw a lot of officers shoved to the ground. They pushed over the motor bikes and I saw bottles and bags of trash fly at officers on a few occasions.
Sorry guys, you do that kind of stuff, you're gonna get arrested...
I have another observation for you. Consider this. Consider being a police officer and this is what you are in the middle of... Yes, there are a few officers in the middle of the crowd here, look for their hats to spot them.
The crowd would not give way for some time... Sometimes they would even lock arms, and be layers deep creating a virtual human wall.
And yes, you not doubt noted the guys in gas masks. You may not have seen the phone # many had written on their arms... It was legal aid... so when they got arrested they were prepared to make their one phone call...
I felt for the officers. Honestly, I was more worried about their welfare than the protesters. And if anyone is thinking of 'they're just pigs' or many other colorful versions of that I heard yesterday, save your breath. They're all people out there... cops and protesters alike... they all have families, loved ones, so keep that crap to yourself. I cannot imagine being one of those officers and seeing that crowd of thousands of angry people coming at you. I do not envy their job.
While I am not saying I am a fan of seeing any violence between police and protesters, I think with only 10-20 arrests happening in this hour + march... the police were very lenient. Most of the arrests that I saw, by the way, had to do with protesters going hands on with police, shoving over their bikes, or throwing things at the officers.
So a couple final thoughts -
Why do these things get violent? I think some of the protesters know they have to so they can get news coverage. Sadly, most media outlets do not cover thousands of people marching peacefully, but as soon as there is a clash with police, it goes world-wide. They had a victory in the morning not being tossed out, so they needed to do something with all those people and a march it was... But then again, I guess that has never changed.... heck our forefathers were tar and feathering British and throwing tea overboard now weren't they....
Is everyone violent? No! It is a very very small minority that is. Case in point, after the march there was a man walking around the park trying to rally people to help him. He wanted to move the barricades set up around the park as well as the police officers standing by them, by force. He kept asking people to join him and I heard group after group say "Hey, that's not what we're here for." He would then move on to another group and try again. Did he get the people he needed? I don't know I left shortly after that, but there are those who are just there to be violent and cause trouble. Sadly it is that element that gets the coverage, not the husbands and wives, grandmothers, and others who are really there to peacefully assemble and try to be heard.
My weekend at Art In Odd Places had me come home with three pieces of art. None of these were purchased. That was one of the unique things about this event. The artists were gifting their art to those around. So, let me share my three new acquisitions with you.
First, is one I went hunting for. It was the Smiley Face Bag Project. The artist Nobu takes those "thank you have a nice day" plastic bags that you get at generic stores and turns them into a portrait of you.
When I saw him setting up early on Saturday I rushed over to him to see if I could get one done. Why? Because the concept made me smile! Yes, it's really that simple!
When I told him I was looking for him he said that he wanted me to be his first portrait. I also interviewed him because I thought he'd make a fun story for Monday morning since the festival was still going on Monday, and he did.
Here's the story I did....
And here is my Smiley portrait! I think I make an adorable smiley character!
The other pieces of art that I came home with from the event are ones that I found along my path. The first one is part of the TsaTsas project
"Tsa-tsas are miniature versions of Buddhist stupas, or markers of sacred space. In Bhutan, where I bought the mold I use to make my tsatsas, they are usually produced in batches of 108, to mark an important occasion or intention, and then carefully placed around temples and natural landscapes as offerings. In setting out 108 tsatsas along 14th Street, I say: mindful attention to small features of the urban landscape is a catalyst for experiencing sacred space, and – more radically – for causing it to occur."
I found mine about 5 feet up....
There was also another one I found that was on a subway railing and that people were starting to knock over so I moved it to the spot that I taken mine from. For those of you who like art edition numbers... mine was 90/108
And my third piece of art was from the See Me Tell Me project. It was a small plastic box that had part of a picture looking out at you. The picture was one the artist took along that street. Here's a description –
"For this series hundreds of amazing New Yorkers were clandestinely photographed along 14th Street. Then 500 collages were created, incorporating their portraits into accordion-style “prayer” books, complete with gold paint, “rosary” beads, glitter, found papers and objects. These books were then placed, like relics, inside small clear plastic boxes backed by magnets. 50 of these works will be installed daily along 14th Street on scaffolds, signs, subway stations, and light poles, for passers-by to admire, take, and own."
I saw lot of them as I walked along
One of them struck me for some reason, so she came home with me.
She now sits on the desk where I work everyday right alongside the tsatsa
The one I have is #44 of 500.
In each of these projects the artist asks you to let them know which piece you picked up, where you found it, etc on their website, through e-mail or a blog. So I did.
I think that's really cool. Giving out the gift of your art and then finding out where it's found a new home and why.
It's got me thinking I need to get back into making little artistic pieces and perhaps some of mine will end up around town for people to take home!
