"Portraits of an Age" Exhibit at Neue Galerie

Each time I go to the Neue Galerie (5th & 86th St.), I'm struck cold, forbidding grandeur of the space. Formerly a private residence, the space has been transformed into a museum that showcases German and Austrian art of the early twentieth century. There is nothing friendly or gemütlich about the Neue Galerie, from the front desk staff to the grim guards. But they have an amazing collection of Klimts and Schieles, as well as some stunning furniture, silver, and decorative arts. (And they have one of the few A+ restrooms in the city).

Their current exhitibit is a collection of photographs from 1900 to 1938. Greeting you at the top of the narrow, marble stairs is Nähe's portrait of Gustav Mahler from 1904 (taken in the Vienna State Opera); it's one of my favorite images of Mahler. There's one room of photographs from before WWI that look more like 19th-century paintings than photographs; the other rooms show portraits, self-portraits, and "snapshots" from the twenties and thirties. The sudden modernity of these images--so different from the fin-de-siecle portraits--is shocking and familiar (a lot of it looks like classic fashion photography).

The feeling that always strikes me when studying images of people from the Weimar Republic years is of overwhelming, impending doom -- a sense of dancing, painting, building, loving, as fast as you can because time is short. Some of that sense comes from a romaticisation of the period (Isherwood, Cabaret), but I always wonder when I look at these images "did this person survive the War? or this person? or this one?" There is no way, I think, for someone in the early part of the 21st-century to look at these images without seeing what came next, what shattered so many lives. The images are more than art--they are history; they have survived, and they're amazing to see, despite the acres of cold marble and wrought iron railings.

Lookie!!

I edited my blog template and figured out how to paste the HTML generated by the blog roll wizard in Bloglines--I can really claim to be in IT now. ;)

To Yoga or Not To Yoga

Every week, I wrestle with the same demons: do I go to yoga class, or do I slink home and watch whatever is on PBS or the Netflix we have lying around the house? (Last week was a relatively stress-free choice because I was in Boston and had the opportunity to take Patricia Walden's class in Cambridge; the week before, only the changing of a light from "Walk" to "Don't Walk" changed my direction and compelled me to go to class).

It's the whole "should" phenomenon: since I feel like I should go to yoga, it somehow becomes an unattractive option. When faced with walking to the studio and going to class, hopping the train to go home to loll on the red chair suddenly seems decadent and exciting. The fact that I would not, in actuality, go home and loll on the red chair, but would instead putter around the house fretting about (but ignoring) the cat box, doing the dishes, picking up and setting down a knitting project, and pretending to read, is of no consequence at all. Going home is the incorrect choice to make...which makes it all the more compelling in my brain somehow.

Maybe the underlying issue here is that I need to (should?) remove the "should" from the equation. I could think instead "it is a privilege to go to yoga" or "it is healthy" or "I always feel great after class"--all of which are true. Thinking of the positive also focuses on the act of going to class rather than the "good/bad" dyad. But it also takes more mental energy, which I seem not to have. But is lack of mental energy an excuse for living a less healthy life? There's no downside to going to class...except moving me out of my comfort zone, which is part of the whole point.

So we'll see. Maybe I'll use the time between now and class to figure out how to get a blog roll to show up in my template...

More soon.

Spring Snow!

I've been trying to reassure everyone in the office that yes, indeed, it is normal for it to snow in March in New York and that the snow won't stay around for long, but I don't seem to have any takers for this philosophy. We're supposed to get 3-5 inches tonight, so it's a little bit of a tough sell. I just keep thinking that before we know it, it will be 80 degrees outside and I'll have my turn to complain about the heat (ugh).

If I had more presence of mind, these are thing things I *would* be blogging about:

1. Spending last week working in Boston last week
2. Thoughts on a cool poem about prayers being liked shoes you put on in the morning that I head on NPR the other night (ed. Found it! Ruth Forman's "Prayers Like Shoes")
3. Thoughts on just how badly I'd like to travel right now (inspired by the NY Times Travel section and, in particular, the article about a novelist who writes in various borrowed homes.

Maybe it's just enough to make a list sometimes. More soon.

Just a Random Friday Night in Jersey City...

...so Stephen and I are both sitting at the kitchen table while Alanis Morisette and T.a.T.u. songs blast from Stephen's iTunes (insert a shudder by Michaela). There's laundry in the dryer downstairs and we're half packed for a weekend trip to Philadelphia to check out the annual Flower Show; Stephen's been reading the paper and writing in what we call his "analog blog" (paper journal) while I've been wasting time surfing and rearranging photos in Picassa. The following conversation has just occured:

Michaela: How about playing music without chicks with guitars?
Stephen: says nothing, but immediately starts playing a Silbermond tune (featuring chicks, but no guitars)
Michaela: How about just no chicks?
Stephen: How about chicks with basses? (He starts playing a song by Melissa Auf der maur (the former bassist of the Smashing Pumpkins)
Michaela: Um, no...
Stephen: Reponds by playing Bruce Springstein

I supposed I deserved that.

MOBA : The Collection

For all of you art afficianados...you won't be able to stop laughing. I particularly enjoyed "Circus of Despair."

MOBA : The Collection

Dr. Who Lives...

I admit I'm a little behind the curve on this one. But thank you to Kieran, who has just e-mailed me a link to the latest trailers for the BBC's new Dr. Who, rumored to air on March 26th. (No date set for the US, alas. But that just means there's all the more reason to get to London...).

Click here for the trailer....

Call Me Crazy, But...

I've created a knitting blog. Essentially, this is all an elaborate procrastination technique for avoiding working on The Most Boring Project Ever (aka "Sapphire," a re-make of the poncho I made for my neice-in-law Rebecca...the original met a tragic fate...see the blog for more...).

Here it is: http://kaekiknits.blogspot.com/

More soon...many things to blog about, not enough time.