Isa Genzken at MoMA

After the most awesome installation ever and Magritte, another slam dunk exhibit opened recently at the Museum of Modern Art, and again, I took advantage of the membership perks and saw the Isa Genzgen retrospective during member previews. And, 10 days later, I went again during regular viewing, when it was considerably more crowded. 

It is the first US retrospective of the multitasking German artist and, well, it is seriously cool. 

6th floor at MoMA: 50 % elegant, surrealist-but-so-very-belgian Magritte,
50 % multi-everything Berlin-in-your-face Genzken,
100 % awesome. 

There is so much to love:

Mesmerising mirror mosaics to discover your pixelated self.

A fantastic tryptich to totally fit my geeky sciency wine-y bill. 

Badass concrete and glass blocks. Substance & form. 

Snaps from Ur-metropolis on the floor. Crush the thing with your own
weight!

To be honest, I know very little about contemporary art and, more often than not, staring at certain pieces triggers a huge "WTF, Jasmine?!"*. But sometimes, contemporary art is just plainly cool and all I can really say about it is that I liked it. Or didn't. On a personal, purely aesthetic level. 

This particular exhibit is beautiful. And I do not really care about how serious conoisseurs, critics, art historians or art nerds interpret Isa Genzken's pieces. All I care about is that they are cool. 

This whole MoMA membership thing is one of the best ideas I've ever had. It seemed like a splurge when I signed up almost six months ago (it was actually one of the first things I did when I moved to the city), but it is well worth it. 

Genious reminder of how cool it is to be a MoMA
member. In a MoMA restroom.

MoMA does an amazing job at reminding us that, despite everyday unpleasantries, SO MUCH BEAUTY can be found, if only one takes the short trip to Midtown ;)

Cheers to that,

Jules

*inside joke from our lab. Long story short: "WTF, Jasmine?!" is just like "WTF, dude?!", but taken to the next level. 

Pink post for Pink October

Pink!

Eveything should be pink today and for the rest of the month*.

Why?

Because October is the pink-ribbon wearing, breast-cancers-awareness-rising, girl-boob-power enhancing month. And it shall be acknowledged.

Source.

Breast cancers are there, their incidences are rising, both in women and in men. But luckily, gals of all shapes, colors and ages are able to speak about it. 

And thanks to being so loquacious, we are increasingly more able to catch the disease early. And breast cancer research is neatly funded, also thanks to the loquaciousness of some incredible women and widespread support, meaning that today we know a lot more about it and can fight it with pretty darn good weapons. 

That does not mean that the fight is over. Or that other (neglected) cancers should be jealous of all the attention breast cancers get. But hey, who doesn't love boobs!

SOTD: Aerosmith - Pink. It couldn't have been more obvious

Having something evil growing in your boob is becoming less and less taboo, it's not shameful anymore. I simply wish that stigmas would disappear when it comes to other cancers, too. I wish people would stop immediately assuming that, when somebody gets diagnosed with one of the lung cancers, "they brought it on themselves, since they were probably smoking". There are many kinds of lung cancers, a lot of them have nothing to do with smoking or other risky behaviours. Or if somebody gets skin cancer, it might not be exclusively because they used to broil themselves on the beach without appropriate SPF. Nobody "deserves" cancer, regardless of how badly they conduct their lives. 

In honour of all the awareness and pinkiness, and just in case you didn't get enough pinkiness reading this pinky post, here is some more pink from New York. 

Ms. Westwood's wisdom - sounds apt.
Pink sandals I wore A LOT this summer, like I wore A LOT
of SPF.
Ladurée's Rose macaroon.
Cava rosado in Madrid last April.
Blueberry, raspberry and yoghurt ice cream at 
Grom back in August.
Tom Wesselmann's Mouth 7 at MoMA.

I'll be wearing a pink ribbon today. And I'll think about all the people in my life that have been affected by breast or any other type of cancer. And I'll probably go to sleep wearing this cool tee. 

You girls and boys, think about boobs today, spread some awareness and, if you can, donate. Not just for breast, but for prostate, colon, lung, skin, cervix, brain, throat, pancreas, liver... There is plenty of choice in the cancers department. And there will be millions of fundraising options, I am sure. 

Awesome card = sweet surprise in the mail = pinkiness galore.

Cheers to healthy breasts and the gorgeous women attached to them. And the men, too.

Jules

*Maybe not the WHOLE whole month...Worry not, dears, this awful pink font will be gone soon :)

Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Magritte.

Magritte's exhibit opens at MoMA tomorrow, which means that yesterday was the last day of member previews, which means I went. Yesterday. 

I just needed a hefty dose of food for the soul, since I've been spending most of my days cooped up in the lab, missing out on the gorgeous september days in New York. Ouch.

Les Amants.
Source.

La Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe).
Source.

Monsieur Magritte was one great, amazing, crazy son of a bitch. I love his work. Have loved him since that fantastic month-long trip to Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and Germany I took with a great friend back in 2004. We were young, extremely thrifty at milking our student status, and had surprising upper body strength - hello, enormous backpacks. 

It was during that trip that I discovered the pleasures of double-fried fries in Brugge, beer, Bao Bao (RIP), and how MoMA looked on vacation in Berlin (hint: it WAS crowded). Also, it was on that trip that I fell in love with modern art by visiting places like this, this, this and this. And, of course, braving the crowds to see the above-mentioned "Das MoMA in Berlin" and other goodies. 

Clairvoyance
Source.

This time around, I feel almost at home at MoMA, and I was more than happy to let Monsieur crazy-ass Magritte take me down his rabbit hole. There are a lot of works on display and the exhibit is beautifully curated. I expect it will be a hit, so I am quite happy I managed take part of the previews and share the view with a manageable crowd.

I'm no conoisseur, but in my opinion, Magritte's genious lays in his unusual juxtapositions. His personal brand of surrealism is less fantastic than for example Dali's. With Dali's work, you're immediately transported into a different world, where the ordinary is so very intertwined with the extraordianry, but the extraordinary wins by a hefty margin. Magritte is different. More subtle, if you will. At first glance, you notice something "off" with the (strikingly realistically depicted) objects in the painting, but it takes a second or two to actually see what is "off". 

Many of the works on display made me smile or even giggle, but quite a few were downright disturbing. 

Among my favourites were Clairvoyance, a self portrait from 1936, Les Amants, from 1928, and La Reproduction Interdite, from 1937. Rape (from 1934), on the other hand, completely freaked me out.

Marry me, Julian Barnes! Or something.

I'm currently reading three or four books, see. 

I simply do not possess the resilience to have just one book open and read it in one go. I guess I am a book glutton. Of course, that means that I am capable of "reading" a book for six months. Maybe because that particular one is my "lunchtime" book, or my current "serious" read, or my "trashy secret guilty pleasure of the moment that can only be consumed in absolute privacy". Meh... 

Maybe I just suck at being consistent.

Well, by far my favourite "unwind with a glass of pinot in the evening" of the bunch is Pulse, Julian Barnes' collection of short stories.

Lovely cover. And this book is made of paper. And ink.
And has pages and the lovely book smell!
Kindle is a little jealous, I think.

And here's the reason why - ok, one of MANY reasons:  

----

"The chocolates?"

"No, the drawings."

"I used to love a cigar. It didn't have to be a whole one. Half would do."

"They gave you different cancers, didn't they?"

"What did?"

"Cigarettes, pipes, cigars. Didn't pipes give you lip cancer?"

"What did cigars give you?"

"Oh, the poshest kind."

"What's a posh cancer? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"

"Bum cancer's got to be the bottom of the pile."

J. Barnes, Pulse - At Phil and Joanna's 1

----

That's a dinner conversation a group of friends are having during dinner. I'm still chuckling. A few minutes ago, I was laughing hard. 

I love you, Barnes.

Jules

"It sucks to be me"

For the first half of this month, I had two sweet visitors from home taking over my apartment. 

Although it sometimes felt crowded, it was lovely having them around. 

The lobby at New World Stages.

We didn't hang out much, but it was very fun having somebody to boss around the kitchen or fill their heads with info about New York. My favourite part was listening to their daily impressions of the city, their awe and excitement. I was only a couple of years older than they are now when I first visited New York and I still remember how I felt walking the streets, completely smitten by everything around me.

Bonus: they brought over half of my winter wardrobe, for which I am extremely grateful. An one more bonus: they treated me to another Broadway show. They chose Avenue Q, a Broadway veteran that  has moved off-Broadway a couple of years ago and audiences still don't seem to get enough of.

It was AWE-SOME.

The show deals with a lot of issues linked to "real life", adulthood and the quarter-life crisis. With puppets. Of course, the Bad Idea Bears will be my favourite kind of bears forever and ever.
And this:

"The internet is for porn. Why you think it was born? For porn, for porn, for porn. Grab your dick and doubleclick..."

Thank you, N and G for the treat.
Jules

Bragging rights

I know, I know, things have been quiet and boring around here for the past few days, but I've cooked up something to break the silence. Yay me… Then...

Although I had something totally different planed for today's post, a late afternoon call from mommy dearest changed things a bit.

AND NOW I GET TO SHAMELESSLY BRAG ABOUT HOW AWESOME MY BROTHER IS. 

Ha! My baby bro is (bragging points as following):

Karlo.
Source.

• my absolutely favorite person,
• a person who gets along extremely well with the wind and the sea (Olympic-level well),
• annoyingly headstrong/tenacious/stubborn, which is often good and sometimes a bit less so,
• a great, complicated, passionate thinker,
• author of mindblowing poetry*,
• this year's winner* of the Veronika award for his second poetry collection, Krčrk,
• a cutie,
• brother of me, myself and I - amazing gene pool, no? ;)

Bravo, bratec. Tvoja sestra je neizmerno ponosna nate in na Krčrk.

Jules

*Slovenian only, but I guess some GoogleTranslate torturing of my mother tongue will likely allow Slovenian non-speakres to at least understand.

 

I checked out this show only 'cause I dig the actor, and I'm really cool with that.

I am currently sprawled on my bed, MacBook on my lap and glass of chardonnay in my hand. Blogging and unwinding. It's half past eleven pm and I just came back home from my first evah Broadway show. 

Since I hate being cliché, I didn't go for Mamma mia, Stomp or The Lion King. 

Instead, I chose the most cliché-filled show I could think of for my Broadway-de-verginization. A cheesy, but endearingly funny rom-com. Why would I do that (just the thought of the cheesefest makes me want to puke a little bit) when there's just so much good stuff around there in the mainstream department?

My answer is simple: Zachary Levi. D'oh.

He might not be the most well-known household name, but if you ever watched Chuck, you must have loved him. If that bit of info doesn't ring a bell, simply scroll down. 

All images shamelessly copy-pasted from here with the sole purpose of making you drool.

He's tall, dark and nerdy, and totally adorable. Has an amazing smile and kind hazel eyes. And boy, can he sing and dance. 

And he can tell a love story:

"Chuck versus the Goodbye" final scene. 

Well, he might actually lack a bit of crude sex appeal, but he's just too cute not to love. Although. Hmmm, let me rethink that:

Ok, maybe I did underestimate his sex appeal just a smidgen. 

Anyways, back to the show. It was just about everything I expected from a Broadway musical: flashy, chock-full of jokes with predictable punchlines, with catchy tunes, and seriously sugary. But thanks to the relatively small size of the theater and the tiny cast it also felt intimate and personal enough.

I'm actually really happy that I went. I had a great time and yes, I might have drooled a little bit. I couldn't really help it. Zack Levi is just adorable. End of story.

SOTD: The National - Don't swallow the cap. 

It's got NOTHING to do with the post itself, but 

I just CAN. NOT. STOP. listening to this album.

Sweet dreams.

Jules

Twelve hours in hipster central

Oh, weekends, how I cherish thee.

I've been in New York for little more than a month now. Besides two trips to the beach and one to Ikea, I have not left Manhattan. Well, I hardly left Midtown/UES, to be completely honest. Blasphemy, shame, shame, blasphemy, shame, I know!

So, to make up for it, I have made arrangements to meet with some lovely people in Williamsburg later Sunday afternoon. And, since I was leaving this god forsaken island otherwise known as Manhattan, I decided to put the trip to good use and spend the day there.

Scenes from Williamsburg, I

I took the L train and I don't know what it is about the tunnel ride under the East river, but as soon as we left the last Manhattan stop, the number of hipster-like-clad passengers increased dramatically. That was the first sign, I guess. Williamsburg is supposed to be the world capital of too-cool-for-you hipsters, indie rock, street art and vegan food.

Scenes from Williamsburg, II

My adventure started with a walk around Bedford Avenue and some browsing around vintage stores. I seriously debated having lunch in one of the small restaurants in the area, but eventually decided on having a picnic in McCarren park, followed by a long walk and thorough enjoyment of street art.

To me, the area looked like a giant construction site with glitzy, modern looking apartment complexes popping up everywhere, and with the occasional stubborn ex-industrial building thrown in the mix. But don't take it wrong. All in all, I liked the feel of the area.

A friend pointed out yesterday that to her, Williamsburg gives off a very Berlin-like vibe. I COULDN'T AGREE MORE!

Scenes from Williamburg, III

Since I was roaming the streets around the famous Brooklyn Brewery and since they offer tours on weekends, it was only natural for me to join. It was definitely not my first brewery tour, and although they like to see themselves as the coolest place ever (and they claim to be the biggest craft brewery in the US), I admit the tour was the most pointless and disappointing one in my collection. It consisted of a cool hipster guy taking a group of people into a big hall where he took the microphone and talked for 25 minutes. And that's it. He made some good jokes and gave a brief lecture in botany explaining that hops are related to marijuana, but other than that, the experience was pretty underwhelming.

"Tour" was a bit boring, but the brewery itself is kind of fun.
Please note the lovely  "official" clock.

But two of the beers I sampled were very very good, so that kind of made it up for the crappy tour, whereas the other two were pretty mediocre.

Love the packaging & the logo & some of the brews.

I left the brewery slightly tipsy and with about half an hour to spare until meeting T and W for a drink. I spent said half an hour browsing Beacon's Closet.

Meeting T and W was the highlight of the day and it transformed our 5 o'clock drink plans into a 6-hour talk-laugh-drink-explore-eat affair that ended with me finally leaving their lovely home just before midnight. 

Saying goodbye to a marvellous Sunday in Williamsburg
AKA view of Midtown from T and W's deck. Gorgeous!

It was nice to meet you, Hipsterland. See you soon.
Jules

Raining in New York City

FINALLY I MADE IT!

"Made it to what?" you might ask. To the Rain room at MoMA.

View from the queue.

The Rain room is a fantastic installation by Random International and is obviously one of the most susccessful contemporary art exhibitions in New York this year. Which basically means that hundreds of people are completely prepared to stand in line for HOURS AND HOURS in the scorching heat just to play around in a dark room with water falling from the ceiling.

Although I have MoMA membership (= precedence + earlier viewing hours) and came there around 7 in the morning (don't ask, the heat is preventing me from sleeping, so instead of sweating in bed, I just decided to get up and go.), I still waited in line for about 6 hours. MoMA kindly supplied umbrellas for shading and chilled bottled water for us losers who stood in line in the scorching sun. To be completely honest, I kind of expected a better management of the crowds, e.g. with scheduled entrances to reduce the lines like they do for some temporary exhibits at European musea... But who am I to be a smartass in this situation? And bottom line, they did quite good. Kudos again for the water!!!

Aaaaaaand what's the gist of the installation and is it worth the wait? Well, it's a large dark room where it rains. Pours. Cats and dogs. But an array of sensors actually stops the raining above the visitors' heads, which means that you're free to roam the downpour without getting wet. Awesome. It IS worth the wait. Absolutely. Yes. Of course.

After 6-ish hours in the outside heat, THIS awaits. 

The darkness and a single spotlight really make the downpour visible and the people playing in the rain little more than silhouettes. A beautiful effect.

And how it feels to be inside the weather phenomenon?

Fun. Fresh. And a bit wet. The sensors themselves work reasonably OK if you walk around. But if, like me, you decide to run around like a four-year old, you'll get wet. And the wetness is directly proportional to your speed and amount of sudden moves like sideways jumps etc. you decide on performing. So, I got pretty wet in the process. And had an amazing fun. 

And after a bit more of waiting, I got to join the fun and frolick around in the rain.

Since my trip to the Rain room lasted until about 2.30 in the afternoon and left me hungry, tired and just about heatstricken, I decided to cancel my plans to go to Queens and meet a friend, but we managed to postpone and she was very very understanding about it. I grabbed lunch instead and went for a walk. Finally the heatwave seems to be subsiding a bit and I am finally able to breathe again. It's still hot and humid as in a pressure cooker, but somehow livable now… Finally!

SOTD: Dream Theater - Trial of Tears (because the chorus talks about how it's raining in New York City)

Stay cool.

Jules

JESSE and CÉLINE. FOREVER.

I finally got to see Before Midnight a few days ago. 

I might not have been in the perfect state of mind to go see a movie like that, but my undying love for those those two just made me wander into a movie theater on 86th street after a Sephora haul.

In this final installment, Jesse and Céline are in their forties, he had left his wife for his French love and she had given birth to their cute twin girls, Nina and Ella. Julie Delpy is still stunningly beautiful, graceful and smart, Ethan Hawke is still adorable. Despite the horrible hair (dude, please, you're no 20-something boy anymore!!!). Their characters are together, swamped with the trivialities of everyday family life, but they are still the Jesse and Céline we knew and loved in the previous two movies. It's not all sugar and spice and everything nice. They fight and get annoyed with each other, and they show how deep their love is. All in a funny and intelligent way.

When the first movie, Before Sunrise, was originally released in 1995, I was at the hight of puberty and way too mainstream to be interested in something like that, so I first saw the movie a few years later, towards the end of high school. At that point, I have evolved into this hopeless romantic, so the story of two smart and charming and somewhat completely relatable people casually meting and immediately knowing they were the perfect match, was exactly my cup of tea. And the cliffhanger ending was perfect, as it left enough room for me to fantasize about their winter reunion and subsequently happily ever after.

Having seen Sunrise quite late meant that I did not have to wait 9 whole years to learn what happened. Before Sunset, the sequel to Sunrise, was released in 2004. It was a bad year for me, romance- and non-romance-wise, but I still loved and enjoyed the movie, even more than the first. All their banter and connection and the sheer amount of topics they manage to cover...

Source

I can not believe it's been 9 years since we last caught up with those two (I'll admit I binge-wathched the first two movies back to back two or three times, but don't tell, ok?). Just like with the first, Sunset ended with a cliffhanger. Which the third movie of the series, brilliantly resolves. 

Source

Taking a look at all three theatrical posters one next to the other clearly represents this couple's evolution. And just like with the films, the Parisian one, for Before Sunset, is my favourite. 

And to finish off, one of my favourite quotes from the series (from Sunset, actually):

             C: Do you think you would have finished the book if you were fucking someone every 5 

                  minutes?

              J: I might have welcomed the challenge!

To Jesse and Céline. Forever.

Jules