Here and There

Started the day off with brunch at Enid’s, during which I ran into a couple of old college friends. Ordered the “Toad in the Hole,” a dish strikingly similar to what has been described to me as “Egg in the Hole.” The idea is: You take bread and slice or carve a hole somewhere in the middle. Then you toast it in a pan, and as you flip it, you crack an egg in said hole. You end up with a fried egg melded to toast, because, really, who wants to bother with bringing the two items to your mouth separately.

Hottest part of the day was brunch (I’d guess from about 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.), so we cooled off with Enid’s mimosas, then headed over to the city and the Whitney Museum.

The Upper East Side is a different beast from lower Manhattan. Its demographic is older, richer, and, frankly, boring. It’s the New York City of Woody Allen movies, where there’s no (okay, just less) dirt, less crime, and you can practically hear Irving Berlin in the air at all times.

But of course that’s where all the museums are.

This year’s biennial Biennial was a huge let down. There were a few exceptions, but most of the work was uninspiring, pretentious, and/or so filled with mixed metaphor to render it meaningless, which is perhaps the point. If so, that message is old, and the world is looking for meaning, if not in life itself, in the many aspects making up the whole of experience, including art.

One of the standouts was Cameron Jamie’s film Kranky Klaus, in which several Krampus terrorize citizens of an Austrian town by tackling them and wrapping chains around their necks. They’re accompanied by their friend St. Nicholas who reads what is presumably some Christian text while the melee ensues. But all voices are silenced by the amazingly loud soundtrack provided by the Melvins. The more violent the Krampus’ actions, the more I laughed and enjoyed the film. I do so love when reality is turned on its head.

I appreciated seeing Daniel Johnston’s color drawings, but it was odd seeing such a homespun character’s work displayed in this lackluster setting. It’s not that Johnston’s genius is in any way diminished as his art competes for the viewer’s attention. He’s had years of competition in music stores. He knows how to get you. It’s more that the visually and aurally loud atmosphere of the hodgepodge that was the show kills any context you may want to bring to seeing the work. You need to be able to get into a certain part of your own psychology to relate in any meaningful way to Johnston’s troubles.

I did appreciate Urs Fischer’s candles as well as the holes he cut in the gallery walls. (Thanks to sokref1 on flickr for the photos.)

Perhaps the best thing we did yesterday was, after a couple of drinks at Delancey Lounge, to walk back to Brooklyn via the Williamsburg Bridge. Curse your blogger for not taking pictures, but I kinda just forgot once we were up there.

Never before have I been afforded such cool views of Manhattan and Brooklyn. A Brooklyn resident I was with told me of the plan to redevelop that borough’s waterfront extending from the base of the bridge north to Greenpoint. I just hope they leave the iconic Domino Sugars sign. (Thanks to tperry111 for the photo.)

We landed and meandered to a barbeque. Nice way to cap a pleasant day. Oh, and the day’s pizza came in the form of a slice of pepperoni from Ray’s Original. Not bad, except that I burnt the roof of my mouth.

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