NYC

We arrived this morning in New York without mishap and made our way safely to Long Island on the LIRR to meet Christina and Brian, friends of ours who kindly offered to let us crash on their floor and show us around NYC a little bit, especially to the MoMa for the Tim Burton exhibit. Which was amazing, by the way, but I'll get to that later.

It should be said that Christina and Brian are amazing. It was snowing all yesterday in New York to an accumulation of about 5 inches, which none of us were expecting. Nevertheless, they shoveled out their car and drove on slippery roads to meet us at the train station when Jeff and I arrived. Honestly, I'm so sick of snow at this point. You'd think that at the end of February we wouldn't have to worry about it, but there you go.

Brian ended up going to work today, but Christina had already elected to take the day off to hang out with us, so we made our way back into the city (again using the LIRR) and towards the MoMa. New York is huge. HUGE. The surrounding areas are huge. Jeff and I had talked recently about where we could/would possibly want to live. We were talking about how my brother's girlfried, once she is done with college, would move somewhere to persue her love of book making and that my brother, as he wants to either be a librarian or work in a bookstore (quite the bibliophile, he) could move with her wherever she went, since there are libraries and bookstores everywhere. In contrast, what I want to do (international advocacy and the like) lead me to one of two places: Washington, DC (where I already am) or New York City. And going in from Long Island in to NYC today reaffirmed what I already know: New York is way too big for us.

Due to the weather the trains were delayed, so we ended up standing on the platform, in the snow and cold for well over half an hour, and so by the time we took the LIRR into NYC and then the subway to the MoMa it was already past 2. We purchased our tickets (hooray for student rates!) and went up to the Burton exhibit. If you haven't been to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, you should. It's gorgeous. Not only does it house some of the most amazing works of art (Starry Night by Van Gogh, various Pollocks and Warholes and such) but it is by itself a work of art. Exposed staircases and high ceilings and balconies overlooking other levels. It's really beautiful and I cannot reccomend it enough.

The Burton exhibit was a madhouse. An absolute zoo. And we weren't allowed to take pictures, which is usually fine, but as Jeff said later we were so busy concentrating on everything that it's hard to recall exact pieces. I wish we had pictures to show you besides the one with this entry (which is me, Jeff, and Christina in front of a huge Burton charater balloon, just fyi). Suffice to say that Tim Burton is an amazing artist, with not only a vivid imagination to rival that of the brothers Grimm, but he also has an astounding talent. He has the ability to create caricatures that capture not only what is visual but what is mentally striking about his subject, while also developing and mastering his own style of doodling. He is a master of lines, always with clear composition.

Jeff is a huge Tim Burton fan and this visit to the MoMa was really for him (visiting Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhole later was for me) but I'm so glad we went. I really now want to go and watch all the Burton films I can get my grubby little hands on.

After the MoMa we walked around a little bit (I'd outfit my home in things from the MoMa gift shop if I could. A rubber vase! Ducky magnets! Stylized cutting boards!) and then made our way back to the LIRR and back to Long Island itself. Now we're waiting on Chinese Food. At some point I need to get a huge thing of Ranch Dressing for my friend Mads (one of the many things that isn't available in the UK) and then get my nose repierced (I lost my nose-ring about a month ago and never got a new one, so now the hole is mostly closed up) and a couple other things, but I think for the moment we're just about done for the day.