the statue of liberty

On my first weekend in NYC, I lived like a tourist. Lynn and Makensie flew out here with me, and the three of us wandered aimlessly, walked the Brooklyn Bridge and shopped. We even went to the Statue of Liberty, which, incidentally, turned 125 exactly one month ago today!

Here's the three of us on the ferry to the Statue. From left: Lynn, Makensie, me.

I was so glad to finally see the Statue of Liberty up close. It is such an American treasure. The folds of her fabric are striking, and the image is so iconic that it's wild to see it up close and from every angle. We were there late in the day, and I was so happy I took this picture:


Here are a few more beautiful photos of this gorgeous statue.

circa 1905, via ck/ck

circa 1935, via ck/ck

her construction in Paris, 1886, via ck/ck

louie louie

One of my friends here in NYC is a woman named Barbara. She's a sassy writer and graduate professor at The New School who I met through a friend. The first time we visited was when we met to go participate in the Occupy Wall Street march on Times Square back in October. Now we visit several times a week, since our apartments are a mere 10-minute walk apart. We were hanging out on Sunday night in her living room with her cats Newman and Jackson, and she had just Saturday night seen the movie London Boulevard with Keira Knightley and Colin Farrell. She was playing me all this music from the era of the movie and was so surprised that I wasn't familiar with "Louie Louie." She called it "the ultimate college song."


Do you know it?

world of video

I don't know about you, but I've noticed the demise of a lot of movie rental shops in recent times. I can only guess it's the combined impact of Netflix, Redbox and other internet streaming tools that have made it difficult for these shops to survive, especially in this economy. So a few weeks ago, I was all in the mood to watch a movie and I didn't have anything in from Netflix that I hadn't watched and the nearest Redbox was a half a mile away (that's far when you live in Manhattan) and I thought— maybe, just maybe, there's actually a movie rental shop in my neighborhood. I Googled it and found a super shop called World of Video. (It's such a straightforward title that it sounds ironic and hipster.)

via Total Film Gallery

via Listal

World of Video is located a convenient 5-minute walk from my front door (awesome) and boasts more than 30,000 titles (wow), including a collection of silent films. Because of the vastness of the collection, it's a natural place to go when you're looking for something obscure, which, in fact, I was. I was looking for one of my absolute favorite movies, The Out-of-Towners remake from 1999 with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. For some reason, this movie seems to be so difficult to find. Netflix doesn't even have it in stock! (Say wha?!) I walked in, and the friendly staff at World of Video pulled it off the shelf within seconds. Admittedly, they did rib me when I said it was one of my favorites and asked me if I've seen the original. (I'll be honest, I haven't.) The guys behind the counter are serious movie watchers. There is a poster for each staff member on the front of the counter that has their names and their top 10 favorite movies. They recommend titles and I hear they have specialties. (Here's an article about the store.)

The only problem is that it's pricey— $5 for a one-night rental. You can buy an annual membership (first year, just less than $22) that comes with a few free rentals and then rentals are $4.75. Or you can buy rentals in bulk for cheaper. Even at these prices, it doesn't feel like a rip-off, since they are a specialty shop in a business that's changing, and they're paying West Village rent.

All in all, 4 stars. Enjoy :)

photo by Shanti Knight, Los Angeles, California, August 2007

manhattan map

Manhattan can be so much fun to navigate. It's complex enough to be a bit of a challenge, but logical enough to not be too frustrating. And it's so much fun to walk through and see the neighborhoods change in character and appearance, even while they are all so close to each other. I've been studying NYC since I was a teenager, but, understandably, living here has made my knowledge of the city much greater! I recently found this fantastic map of the neighborhoods, with street markers. Enjoy!

and there are two other fun maps where this came from (NYWhatToDo.com)

happy friday!

I love these laughing eyes of a true New Yorker, Robert de Niro. via The Steward

tips for paying student loans (I have to start thinking about that now...)

 a glass for one who's ever the optimist

feeling free with these cliff-diving images

remember "Back to the Future" from Irina Werning? Here's a behind-the-secnes look at her work (watch the video; it's great), and part of her latest project with pro athletes

I want this easy-breezy little pink dress so badly!

a genius way to get closer to nature

sometimes you just have to laugh... it's just too easy. thank you, mr. vice president, for having such good intentions. but also for being so entertaining.

between the moon and new york city

I just stumbled across this endearing watercolor yesterday. It's by Shirley at Paper and Threads.

fake subway advisory

Check out this fake advisory designed by some snarky, clever, creative and disgruntled New York City commuters. Kinda cute, huh?

via Matador Network

solitaires

Could living alone lead to dancing with a hatstand?

Thanks to Devices of Wonder, to which I have been contributing as part of a class project, I just found this 2008 New York magazine article about loneliness (& lack thereof) in New York City. It's stellar! And such a sweet love letter to this beautiful city.

Photo of Mel Gibson from What Women Want found on MySpace

sculptures at the met

New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art is easily one of my favorite museums in the world. Jamie over at From Me To You recently put up a gorgeous collection of photos that she took of the statues at the Met. There's so much emotion and her photos really do justice to the beauty and skill of these pieces.

All photos are by and courtesy of Jamie at From Me To You

Thanks, Joanna, for the tip!

celebrities on the subway

When I'm in New York, I take the Subway a lot. In my experience, celebrities don't really do this. Thanks to People, we now know that they do. Cool.

Anne Hathaway

Hugh Jackman

Liev Schreiber

new yorker comic

Loving how The Monkeys You Ordered literalizes New Yorker cartoons. Happy Friday!

Courtesy of Comics Alliance

Joianne Bittle: Preserving Mass Extinction

Joianne Bittle, apart from being a dear friend and wife to my dear cousin Nicholas Knight, is a fantastic New York City-based artist. She's an accomplished painter and for the past several years has constructed dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History. Recently, she took her diorama skills to the gallery, where she constructed "Portable Landscape: Preserving Mass Extinction."

In Preserving Mass Extinction, Joi reconstructed Texas' Permian Basin as it might have been 250-290 million years ago. This project required significant research and bringing together her skills as a diorama artist, where she's mastered her skills as a translator of scientific knowledge to the rest of us. She casted molds of the plants, animals, and earth formations that might have been found in this area, which was, at the time, covered in a shallow sea. She painted the figures and assembled the entire diorama in the back of a UHAUL trailer. You can see the whole thing at Eugene Binder Gallery in Marfa, TX through March 31, 2011.

Read a bit of her publicity here, and view more photos here.

Here's Joi with Portable Landscape.

Photos courtesy of Joianne Bittle