Happy New Year! (2011, and all that...)

I figure I'm still good until Thursday to tell every everyone Happy New Year...after "Three Kings Day" on the 6th, the Christmas stuff gets repacked, and we all resign ourselves to the 2011-ness of it all. (By the way, are you a pro-"twenty-eleven" blog reader, or a pro-"two thousand eleven" blog reader???) Regardless, one of the best ways L & I wound down 2010 was to make a quick getaway to Manhattan after finals... and finally got to several places I'd wanted to check out for years...



First, we got to the top of the Empire State Building on Saturday night...Well, I guess we could have paid some more and gotten up another 12 floors, but the 80+ floors seemed good enough for us. Clear cool night, so we could see for miles in all directions. (KISS were no-shows, though.) New York & Vilnius seem to be the only two cities that really make me weak in the knees...

Next, after a semester of John Lennon-related readings (solo album releases, 30th anniversary of his death, etc.), I made a solo pilgrimage early Sunday morning to the Dakota and Strawberry Fields. Knowing the back-story of his murder made the gates of the Dakota--I guess I just felt numb. There's nothing marking Lennon's death there--no need, perhaps. Plus, across the street is where the "Imagine" mural is located. Quiet and still at 8am...

And finally, I got to the MoMA--half a day was enough to make a dent, and not much more. Still, I was lucky that the Andy Warhol film exhibition opened on the top floor, including a gallery space with 13 screen tests all screening simultaneously. Warhol's subjects stare back at you--and projected at 16fps (after being shot at 24fps), their slow-motion added to their oddness.

Well, not everybody stared. Lou Reed stared. Niko stared. Alan Ginsberg stared. But Dennis Hopper couldn't help himself....