quelque chose charmant

Black Orpheus.

not only does this movie make me want to visit Brazil, but it also makes me want to learn Portugese AND join in a samba school...

musical interlude

one of my favorite songs of my life.
clever youtube interpretation.

Philadelphia cont.

It was a whirlwind day and we squeezed in as much as humanly possible in an 11 hour period before our bus took us back to 42nd St.

Philadelphia Museum of Art had some great pieces in its collection. A quick run whizzing past the Impressionists
galleries complemented all the stuff I've seen over and over back home at the Art Institute and glided through in Paris. Lots of wacky Marcel Duchamp pieces. And my favorite silly painting...that Joan Miro 'Dog Barking at the Moon.' I don't know why I love that one so much.



Of course it is common tourist tradition to run up the steps on the museum à la Rocky. Behold the bronze statue in the upper right photo. I bet that little girl posing never even saw the movie. Funny what statues make people do.

I would definitely go back to Philadelphia. It was a strange city to classify, as we had discussed with some student friends of my brothers over dinner that night. It has its history, but then it felt like Detroit in some parts. It had that fantastic food market (what was that called??), where you could order Amish-prepared apple dumplings or BBQ or, of course, cheesesteaks. But then it had as many homeless beggars as Chicago does, yet in a more concentrated area. I could only imagine Philadelphia's homeless population carries an overt disgust for its anthem of 'Brotherly Love' day in and day out. When traveling, there's always a lot to be told from the eyes of the city's homeless...

note to self: must watch that tv show people are always telling me to watch 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.'

Philadelphia

I had never been to Philadelphia before this trip. It awoke an urge to go visit our nation's historical towns again, most definitely. I was 4 when I did Washington, DC, but I sadly remember a Burt Reynolds film being shot in my grandparents' condo complex more than I remember being inside the White House...

Here I am in the wind (again) in front of Independence Hall, where the Constitution of the United States was signed in case you don't remember.

It's also two days before my hair was chopped by a student at bumble & bumble hair school in Manhattan. He did a good job, but I can't get it to look as cool as he did that day so I guess you'll have to wait for a shot of the new 'do...

Anyway, back to our nation's history.

Over there is the Liberty Bell. They had a strange modern museum building built around it, not at all like in Back to the Future. You have to go through intense security to get inside. Ryan (my brother) and I stood around it for a few minutes and had the giggles because we were the only blatant Americans standing there in the item of purest essence of our nation's history. There were a group of Indian families posing for group portraits in front of the Bell, some Greeks (I believe that was their language) doing some posed gestures for the camera, and a Chinese bus tour group making their way in as we squeezed our way out. It was interesting to experience. Here stood my brother and I, each 1/4 French, 1/8 Osage Native American, 1/8 Irish and 50% American Mutt, next to all of these other global identities. That truly is America in a nutshell.

More Philadelphia to come...

New York City, NYC, pretty mean when it wants to be...

it was a cold and blurry trip.

squeezed a lot in. but MAN was it windy. i felt like the animated Addams Family in an episode of the Flintstones, where the weather just seemed to follow them everywhere they went.

here I am posing near little brother's place on the upper upper west side, George Washington Bridge behind me.

some highlights? art museums, touring our nations history in Philadelphia, FOOOOD, the Strand bookstore, and the girl on the subway.

Ryan and I were headed home for the night on the A train, stuffed full of assorted cakes and ethnic meals and windblown beyond recognition. I glanced over to my brother sitting on my left and caught wind of a knitting project a few seats over, across the way. Knitting always catches my eye because I don't know how some knitters and crocheters can detail such intricacies on mass transit.

I looked up from the piece she was knitting and looked at the woman. I had to try and restrain myself with giggles. At least in the beginning. She was wearing a hat, that she obviously knit. It was complete with cat ears on the top. She was a tall and lanky figure, sitting with her legs twisted and intertwined with each other yet stretching into two seats. She had a pointy chin, thick glasses, and was holding her knitting needles about two inches from her eyes with a strange smirk on her face. Her handbag also had a cat's face crocheted on its front flap, resting on her sprawling pose.

I kept peeking back over to her to catch a better glimpse of her project, until my little brother caught me mid-turning-of-the-head and did a knowing gesture with his eyebrows and I just LOST IT!

It was at that moment I realised she was knitting a sweater for her CAT! I bursted out in laughter so hard and bellyaching and it wouldn't stop!

I quieted down after about a minute straight and breathed deeply.

Then I glanced back over and it started up again, this time lasting about 5 subway stops.

I just laughed and laughed and laughed until I was lightheaded and dizzy and I'd have to catch my breath.

Colombus Circle, expressing past the Central Park stops, 168th...the laughter just kept coming and coming and coming and I couldn't stop myself!

I thought the paramedics were gonna have to come and rescue me from asphyxiation!

I couldn't look at her.

So many character developments were racing through my mind.

She was like a character Kristen Wiig would have created on SNL.

She was the epitome of what happens when you live alone in a big city for much too long.

I was envisioning her having tea parties with her cats in a one-room Washington Heights studio apartment.

All I wish is that I would have been able to control my laughter long enough to snap a shot of her. I hadn't laughed like that in I-can't-even-remember-how-long-ago.