Brooklyn, delays & LDN

Just a quick one, no photos today.

Went to the party in Brooklyn. I decided I WASN'T going to go, then was sitting reading my Time Out NY at eating pot noodles at about 8pm, and thought - y'know what? It's New York, for God's sake. So I took the subway out to Brooklyn at about 9.30 and met Krista at her place. Brooklyn seemed a lot 'cooler', even just from the geezers getting on the train. Like a less gentrified Soho/Village/Chelsea. Very Melbourne. But in a good way. So I met up with Krista and her cat - so much fur, wow - and we had a wine and chatted about life and plays and New York and Interplay. Then we got a car service to the party. The driver had no idea where he was going, and kept demanding that Krista look at her iPhone to get directions - "Look at your GPS, look at your GPS!" - and charged us like $8 more than he was meant to. Whatever. We were glad to get there alive after all his shenanigans.

Party was in an apartment, not sure whose, but it was busy and sweaty and cool. We had some champagne and chatted, talked to some people. One girl got all up in my face about being Australian, questioning my accent, saying I didn't 'look' Australian - bitch, you didn't look stupid, but shit. Stayed there til the wee hours, then jumped back in a car and back to the hostel. Wasn't brave enough to tackle the Subway in the early hours, even though Krista assured me it would be safe. I had no credit, and no-one could understand my accent, so even if I did cry for help, no-one would get it.

Friday I did a MASSIVE walk down 5th Ave, checked out the toy stores and the Apple store and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't remember. Feet very sore. It was stupidly hot again, but then there was a thunderstorm - stuck in the middle of Central Park, no trees, drenched - but then the sun came out again and it was 40 degrees. Nice.

London: flight delayed 2.5 hours. Hardly slept at all. Off the flight, grabbed my bags, jumped on the Tube - still 10 quid left on my Oyster card!! Hilarious! Had arranged to meet Beth at Earl's Court, and while I waited, I went and bought a SIM card for my phone - new number is 0750 401 7037 - and set that up. So good to see Beth's stupid head running across the road to greet me. We went for a few wines and met up with Georgia, her housemate and Aussiemate and one of mum's old students (she taught them both English). George went to work and Beth and I went home to eat spag bol and watch DVDs. I was heaps tired from the flight still, and was pretty much dead by 11. It doesn't get dark til crazy late here, like 10pm and there's still light. But it feels so comfortable and home-like. I'm so glad to be here! Everything's familiar and lovely.

Yesterday I caught up with Inga for lunch - Inga worked on Reception with me at the hotel in Gloucester Rd. Again, lovely. Her friend Nancy came, and she works at the hotel now, as a Concierge. We got nachos and steak - real food is real different to 2 minute noodles! - and cider and just chatted for ages, and then took a walk to the Hyde Park and sat in the sun. So lovely. Stopped by the hotel and saw Pat and Susana, which was lovely too. Pat came out after work and we all went for a drink. It all just clicked back in place, there was only a few minutes of the awkward I-haven't-seen-you-for-two-years shit, and then BAM! Back into it. Good times.

After all that, met George and Beth again at the Troubadour (which is fast becoming a habit - twice in two days. And twice in two days there have been crazies wandering around out the front, the first one thinking Beth had "nice legs, nice long legs, real nice legs yeah"). We got talking to this guy whose band was playing there and he tried to convince us to go down and watch, and we just... didn't. We had dip and chips instead. He was nice enough, though.

Feeling very weird at the moment. Mitch, my Labrador, is a bit sick at home, and he's going to the doctors tomorrow morning to work out if they're going to do a very expensive operation on him. I'm scared he's going to die and I'm not going to be there. I don't even think I can comprehend what I would do if that happened. He is my best friend, y'know? I'm sure I treat him like shit a whole lot and he resents me for it, but he's been in our family since I was little. He walked me and my cousins to primary school every day, he's gone on holidays with us, he's run away and come back again, he's never growled in his life, EVER, he's just slept and played and sometimes pooed on the carpet. We still have an extension cable that's kinda stained from a runny poo he did on it one night when he had an upset tummy and we were all sleeping. Crazy puppy. I don't even want to think about it because I'm already a bit teary just writing this. Idiot. I kept laughing, saying, Oh haha, Mitch better not die while I'm away! I even TOLD him, I said, DON'T. But he's a bit deaf, I don't think I said it loud enough. Maybe I'll Facebook him.

Tomorrow's Jes. She must've left already, or be getting ready too. I'm collecting her from the airport circa 2.30pm. We're in Reading on Friday, seeing Simon Amstell's stand-up show, and then hopefully the markets this weekend, and Beth and Georgia are having a partay this Saturday night, which'll be funtimes!

That's about it. Georgia just came back with groceries. I'm off, then!

Love to all.
Text me!!!!

xd

Art, Soho and trashy souvenirs

Starting with Thursday and working up to today...

Had lunch with Erin on Thursday at this little Indian place near the school where she teaches. I walked her back there afterwards, and she took me inside and showed me around, the corridors, the classrooms. I'll say it again - just like on TV. After that I wandered down to the Met (the Metropolitan Museum of Art) to check that out. I was trying to work out the difference between a museum and a gallery, but apparently the terms here are interchangeable. They mean the same thing. I always thought a gallery was for art, a museum for dinosaur bones. So I went to the Met. Huge, massive building, reall beautiful inside and out, and right on the park, you kind of wander out from the trees and it's right there on 'Museum Mile'. They have a special exhibition on right now of superhero costumes and the fashion that is inspired by it. So they had a whole lot of really cool costumes - Iron Man's real one (the actual one worn in the film), and Catwoman and Superman and the new Batman and the blue chick from X-Men who John Stamos' ex-wife played, her costume too. And then all the high fashion couture shit next to it. I know these things aren't necessarily meant to be worn, that they're just as costume-like as the costumes themselves, but goddamn. Why? Pants are pants and should have cylinders, right? So that your legs can go in them? Not weird angles and shoulderpads on your knees and a little cuckoo clock where your zipper should be. Shut up.

I saw lots of old European art, baby Jesus and Mary were around a lot, very popular those two. The modern stuff was really cool though, the Picassos and the Pollocks yada yada yada. Love just being around crazy shit like that, it makes you think more or something. Wanker!

That night I went to see Iron Man at the movies. Well. I bought the ticket ok, no dramas there. I thought I'd get some popcorn and a Coke. I forget that 'large' here means, like, human-sized, so the large popcorn and Coke (which ordinarily I could probably get close to finishing, especially if I was in a fattyfatfat mood and/or hungry and/or just fat) was RIDICULOUS. I'm talking a paper grocery bag-sized thing of popcorn and a Coke the size of a KFC bucket of chicken. So I'm trying to juggle this grocery bag and this bucket of soda, and of course, because I don't know the order of things, I didn't realise there was a 'bar' to the side, where one could add butter/caramel/salt to your popcorn, and where you also picked up your napkins and straws. So I'm so preoccupied trying to get to the cinema and take my seat without dropping shit that I don't realise I'm straw-less until I've sat down. That's fine, whatever, I'll just take off the lid and drink from the cup/bucket. So I sit in the second last row, thinking that this will be the best place for me to not be seen by anyone - everyone will sit in front of me, therefore won't see how I'm trying to eat all this popcorn and slurp all this Coke without a straw. Except EVERYONE sits in the row behind me. So I'm alone, in the second last row, everyone behind me, everyone looking at and judging me. I was pretty good for the most part, I think, I managed to not spill any Coke or drop too much popcorn. I was very self-conscious for the whole film, though. Of course, I only managed to drink about a litre and a half of Coke, so it was still pretty full by the end - I would've taken it home with me except I had no straw and no lid, so I had to leave it there. The next morning I woke up with the most terrible popcorn hangover. You know how it is. Salty salty popcorn slowly sucks all the moisture from your body overnight so that when you wake in the morning you're all shrivelled and prune-like and your head feels like it's been sat on a lot. I kinda stumbled through the morning, slowly regaining consciousness. Then went to the MoMA.

The Museum of Modern Art is, as the name suggests, ALL modern art. It was fuckin sweet. I loved it so much. Six floors of wanky modern art, large-scale light installations, video installations, everything. It was ace. There was a special exhibition on there, too, called Take Your Time - the main foyer of which was lit by flourescent yellow lights (see picture). The photo doesn't really do it justice, but basically, the effect of the light made everything - your vision - black and white. It was fuckin weird. You came up the escalators into a colourless world. People walked past you in grey, their faces and clothes grey. It was like those photos you see where the saturation has been removed entirely. It was so scary. And then you'd see into the next room, lit normally, all bright and colourful, but your own arm is till grey. Spooky spooky, but everyone was loving it!

In the foyer they have this massive void in the air, going up about three or four floors, so it's like a big air tunnel thing with balconies you can look out into it from (was that even a sentence?) and hanging in there is this installation, a big fan, like a fan you use in Summer to cool yourself with, on a big rope, swinging around and around. Watch the video below. Hilarious. I don't think the kid is part of it, though I wish he was.

They had a whole lot of Andy Warhol stuff, all the soup cans the a Marilyn and a Mao, and a room of Pollocks (some of the same 'group' of ones that the Met has). It was so weird seeing the 'real' ones, up close and personal. This image, especially, the Marilyn one, is so famous. I guess that's the point.

Part of the permanent exhibition includes architecture and design, so they have a whole floor of modern furniture and stuff - a giant plastic bag that folds up into a bumbag that homeless people can unpack, wrap one end around a vent coming out of a building, and it inflates into a little bubble house to sleep in overnight. Crazy chairs made of bubbles, chaise lounges made of wire, walls made of felt, lamps in the shape of pills - really '21st century', modern stuff. It's all a bit fun, really. Particularly when you read the 500 word explanation and realise that someone has a very real justification for making this stuff.


After the MoMA, I went for a wander down that end of town, said my goodbyes to 5th Avenue etc. I went to the New York Public Library (I had total Sex and the City movie flashbacks!) and then via the Empire State to Grand Central Station (left), which was fuckin beautiful. It's like the entrance hall to a palace or a museum or something, massive high ceiling all painted and lots of beautiful chandeliers. People running everywhere, of course, total chaos, particularly at 6pm or whatever time it was when I got there. The Empire State is kind of to one side of it, so there's this beautiful photo op with the two of them together.

Nice night last night, just chilling at the hostel. I finally realised that this place has a kitchen, buried in the dungeon, so made myself some pot noodles and read my book on the terrace (also a new discovery - who would've though having a bit of an explore could yield so many benefits??) and chatted to some other people. Very civilised and lovely. There was a DJ playing in the foyer, but everyone just looked too fucked to even consider dancing or hip-hopping or doing the rap or whatever it is you're meant to do with a DJ. Wiped out.

Today I got the Subway down to Chinatown and wandered through the street markets in Soho, looking for tacky souvenirs that are about a fifth of the price that they are in Times Square. Cheapskate much? Came back up into midtown walking through Greenwich Village and Chelsea. So many arty faggy wanky people ... it was like being back in Melbourne! It's a lovely area, the village, it's very green and quiet and chilled. There was a big Indian food and culture festival going on, which was cool to wander through and get free watermelon from. This crazy white lady had an argument with an African American woman about something - whitey was yelling about there being seven-foot hookahs (as in, water pipes/nargiles, not Pretty Woman) over on the East side, and what kind of American was that, what kind of Christian consciousness was that, where was God, huh, that wouldn't have happened in '96! Then the black lady told her to come back over here so I can throw paint all over you, I can paint your whole face! Lady. HAH! In the markets, I overheard this lady - and you have to say this out loud in your thickets, strongest New York cliche accent, because that's how it was delivered - on the phone to someone, and she said, "Look, I'm sure it looks nice, but I just can't see you in a dog collar, sweetheart!". Mother to daughter? Wife to husband? Wife to wife? Master to slave? Interesting.

Heat/humidity has crept back up today. Heading upstairs now to pack my clothes ready for 11am checkout tomorrow. Sunburn is peeling, I look like I have leprosy. Considering the state of the shower this morning, I probably do have leprosy. I did manage to get a pair of thongs and a t-shirt today, though, from Old Navy - eight dollars! Very exciting. Old Navy is like classy Target, H&M is nicer still - bought me some pyjama pants there yesterday. I love that place so much. It's why I'm going back to Europe, pretty much.

Krista, another Interplay girl, who also lives in NY, has just got back into town and has invited me to a party in Brooklyn tonight, hosted by her friends who are video installation artists. I'm really keen to go, but I don't know whether I'm going to be able to get back up here to 103rd. I'm having a Miranda moment - to Brooklyn or not to Brooklyn? Only time will tell...

xd

PS. I have photos but for some reason only some of them want to upload. I don't know anymore. Use your imagination, cut out pictures from magazines and put my face on the bodies, it's really all exactly as you imagine it to be. There are heaps more from Salvation Mountain at my flickr account, www.flickr.com/photos/dangiovannoni/sets .

PPS. I don't know if I told you - I went to and ate at the Seinfeld diner! The real one! Tom's Restaurant! I took a photo from the front, you can actually SEE IT. It's all different inside, obviously, because it wasn't shot there, but the outside! I had lunch there, too, a wrap and fries and a soda. Tiiiight. (For the record, 'tight' is hip American slang for 'cool'. It's like 'fetch' for 2008. I say it because I want to FEEL American, y'know? I want to BE one of these people. Same reason I'm invading Iraq tomorrow, and eating grilled cheese right now. Too much? Pfft.)

World Trade Centre, Ellis Island and Lady Liberty

Yesterday I jumped back on the hop-on hop-off bus and took it downtown this time. I jumped off at the World Trade Centre site, and spent some time wandering around there. It's basically just a massive construction site, cranes and scaffolding everywhere. You peek through the wire and there's a big hole and lots of workmen doing their thing. One of the giant cranes says something like "Helping rebuild the Freedom Tower" on it, and a big American flag plastered all over it. The flags are big here, everywhere you go you see flags. Lots of people taking photos. There's a walkway you have to cross to get to the other side of the road, and when on it you get a better view of the whole scene - the photo is on the left. From there you get a real sense of what is missing. It's this enormous gap, basically, where you know these two massive buildings once stood. The site itself isn't particularly affecting - it's too busy, there are too many people just going about their business for it to be a really 'still' experience, as least for me - but once you see the hole, then you kinda start thinking. Even walking there, when I couldn't actually see the site itself, I was thinking, 'This whole area would have been covered in smoke and dust and ash'. All the buildings, the sandwhich shops and the dry cleaners, they were the shops and the streets we saw on TV, covered in brown. It was a little spooky.

Then I walked down to Battery Park, where the ferry for Liberty & Ellis Islands leaves from. It's quite pretty down there, by the water. A park with lots of greenery, and some shade, and some benches and grass to sit on. They've also got a statue there, a big globe sculpture that used to be down at the WTC site, but which managed to 'survive'. It's pretty beaten up, but there's an eternal flame burning in front of it. The plaque says "it endures as an icon of hope and the indestructible spirit of this country".


I stopped at that point and had an icy pole and a drink of water. The weather was gross beyond belief. The line for the ferries were huge, too, I couldn't believe it. I decided to wait and see if they got any smaller, which they did, eventually.

Then I got the ferry out to Ellis Island, skipping Liberty Island - I didn't think it was worth it, to wander around at the base of the statue, unable to see it because you're so close ... plus it really didn't interest me. Ellis Island was fucking incredible, though, despite the huge number of people there. I took the audio tour through all the rooms and up the staircases and through the corridors - the most interesting room was the Registry Room, this massive hall where they used to process all the migrants. (Ellis Island is an island just off Manhattan that any migrants coming in off ships had to stop at in order to be processed. The buildings there now act as a museum. Yep.) Anyway. I stood there and thought about how my nonno's grandfather and my nonna's father both came through here, were both 'processed' here, and how terrifying it must have been. Not speaking any English, not knowing what the fuck was going to happen, but having the guts to get on a boat and go to a different country in search of something better. It made me put all my own homesickness and dirty-shower woes in perspective (the showers are pretty dirty, though, I'm pretty sure I have some gross tinea shit growing on my feet now - Jes, bring shower thongs).

The photo above is the view of the Manhattan skyline from Ellis Island, through the windows of the Registry Room. Imagine the feeling of being so close to your destination - it's literally JUST THERE - but also not knowing whether you're going to get to go over there or not. They were subject to all kinds of health checks and shit ... if they were puffing when the got to the top of the stairs, they were checked extra carefully to make sure they weren't going to bringing in any diseases, and to make sure they were strong enough to work and wouldn't become dependant on the State. I wouldn't have made it through - I was puffing like a bitch by the time I got to the top of the stairs.

The Statue of Liberty kind of stands there, watching over the whole thing, flags waving all around her on the island. She's actually enormous, so huge. Her feet are the size of a house or something, a really small house. It's been so surreal seeing all these 'iconic' New York figures up close and in the flesh - there's this weird detachment that happens, and I've said this already here, but you feel like you've seen it before because you HAVE, just on TV a whole bunch, never in real life. It takes some of the fun out of it, maybe.

Anyway. New York is growing on me. I'm better at wandering around alone. I have a few good bagel places to visit and get lunch. I don't know if mentioned this already - saw Sex and the City on Monday night. So good to see the girls again! I really liked it, it's a total fantasy story and completely absurd but it was great. Last night I saw Boeing Boeing, which wasn't amazing - I don't think I can do farce. The crowd went nuts though. I only saw it because Christine Baranski is in it, and she was unreal! This grumpy French maid ... just hilarious. Tonight is Wicked, tomorrow and Friday I might try and see some 'plays', off-Broadway stuff (even off-off-Broadway!). Top Girls kinda whet my appetite for some 'proper' theatre. Wanker.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with Erin, and going to see some art. Hopefully. I'll get around to it eventually, it's just a matter of fitting it all in! I want to do the following things before I leave - the Met, MoMA, Grand Central, Empire State, United Nations building, Greenwich Village (I've already been there but I really liked it and want to go back to do some more wandering).

That's all, I'm done! Sunday evening I fly out for London.

xd

New York, New York

So I've been here a few days now. Moved out of Erin's place this morning and have checked into a big hostel, which is actually not too bad - clean rooms, a big internet cafe, payphones, it's all here. Hostels are great that way, I think, because you kind of get everything you need in one place, it actually does act as a 'home away from home'. Sort of.

Went and saw Spring Awakening yesterday, a 'rock musical' that won a Tony or something last year - hugely popular, I managed to get one of the student rush tickets which are about 25 bucks, compared to the 100 or so that everyone else pays. You buy it the morning of the show, and it's first in best dressed. I ended up having a seat in one of those rich-people booths, on the side of the theatre - from which you can only see half the stage. The usher was nice, though, and moved me into the second row of the Dress Circle, into some restricted leg room seats... shit, my knees are still recovering. I'm seeing Wicked on Wednesday night - it was totally sold out, basically, and the only 'rush' they have is the lottery, the same one I got in back in LA, but I didn't want to risk it in case I missed out. Wicked in New York was one of the big things I wanted to do, so I forked out 100 bucks and got the last seat on Wednesday night, in the middle of the front row of the Dress Circle. Nice nice nice.

Today I jumped on one of those sightseeing buses - they're great, they take you everywhere! And you can jump on and off at your leisure. I did a big loop through Harlem, which I've already kinda explored because that's near where Erin was living, but I saw the Apollo theatre, which was pretty tight. Got off at the Guggenheim to check that shit out ... of course, they're renovating it, so the whole permanent collection is out of action. All they had was a childrens art exhibition. Lovely. So I wandered down to the Met, thinking I could at least see SOME art today ... that's closed on Mondays. So at that point I kinda figured, ok, it's 2 o'clock, it's 1000 degrees and the humidity is gross, and I was hoping to be in a cool gallery by now ... I'm going to go sleep in Central Park. Which is what I did. I got an icy pole and lay in the sun (hello sunburn!) for a bit and just snoozed. I saw my first NY squirrel, too, clambering up the tree next to me! We made eye contact and he was staring me down, and as I reached for my camera he took off, screaming 'No paparazzi!'.

Central Park, aside, I guess, from being filled with crack addicts and crazies at night time, is actually really beautiful. To have this massive green space in the middle of a city that is just SO much about the 'city' and the business and the tall buildings and the no visible sky anywhere, is a total relief. You can wander for hours and only once or twice catch the sound of cars or buses or police and ambulance sirens - that's something you hear ALL the time, in fact I can hear one right now! Constantly, 24x7, sirens. And there are cops everywhere! Traffic cops, normal cops, whatever, just cops. Watching, eating hot dogs, chatting.

Yesterday I did a big walk around the Times Square area, went up the Rockefeller and checked out the city view from the observation deck, saw Radio City, all the tourist crap. It was cool.

Tonight I'm thinking maybe, if it's still not too hot outside, I'm going to wander up to the Seinfeld diner and check that out. Then possibly see the Sex and the City movie, depending on how far the nearest cinema is. The heat really kills moving around, it's horrible! You just want to lie in your underpants somewhere really well air conditioned and not think about anything ever again.

My internet is going to kick me off in 30 seconds.

Love you all, miss you heaps.

xd

Salvation Mountain, Hollywood, New York

There's a lot to catch you up on!

I'll do it in order, starting a few days ago.

Allison, Alyssa and I drove out to Salvation Mountain on Thursday, which is about a three hour drive from Long Beach, way into the desert. It was a killa drive, sandstorms and crazy wind and no visibility ... it was scary shit at some points! Salvation Mountain is basically this big mountain that this dude, Leonard, has set up as a 'shrine' to Jesus, I guess. He covers the earth on the mountain with this clay-like substance called adobe, which hardens after time, and then he paints it. Check it out:

So you drive for HOURS, and there's no colour, no life, no nothing in the desert - literally just a trailer park, and then a little town which is the exact same town that you'd see in any horror film, the town that the van full of young kids stop at on their way to the campground to pick up some beers, and the locals look at them and spit their chewing tobacco and there's flies and silence, and then the store is all dark and low-ceilinged and it's about 100 degrees ... that was the town that we passed through to get there, and then all of a sudden, like a mirage or something, this mountain appears, all colourful and amazing. It was so stunning. You can walk on it and climb it, and Leonard was there and gave us a bit of a tour, and then got us to help him make up some adobe. It was so tight.

Me and Allison on the 'yellow brick road', which leads up the mountain.

Here you can see the stark contrast to the desert surrounding it.

I have 1000 more photos, none of them do this place justice. Incredible.

So that was Wednsday. That night, Stacy, Allison, Kate and I went to this bar called Red Room, near their house. We just had a few drinks, this girl there told me I should go to Oregon, and she kept telling me, then we sang songs in the car and went home...

Stace, Kate and Allison...

Thursday I hit Hollywood Blvd, walked the Walk of Fame, all that shit. It was all very nice, but actually a bit tacky and gross. Had fun at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, taking photos of all the hand- and footprints of the celebz! On the left there are the Harry Potter kids, but there's also Shirley Temple and Matt Damon and Brad Pitt and George Clooney and Meryl Streep ... is that the gayest collection of names you've ever read? Shithouse.

Managed to somehow score a $25 front row ticket to Wicked, in the lottery. Right in the front, dead centre ... it blew me away. I still get tingles just thinking about it! Amazing show, going to try and see it again in New York (where I am now) and in London, too, with Jes.

Friday I flew to New York, leaving behind the LA girls. I can't even explain how good it was to be with them and see them again. It's hard being so far away from your own world, but these girls were so incredibly warm and welcoming and just really cool.

So, now I'm in NY. Haven't seen a whole lot yet, the big week starts tomorrow. I did, however, see two shows yesterday - Dangerous Liaisons with Laura Linney (really great, very enjoyable) and Top Girls with Martha Plimpton and Marisa Tomei (good, too, but the British accents were so unbelievably bad that it was really offputting). Today hopefully going to see Spring Awakening, tomorrow the Sex and the City movie, and then a play pretty much every night for the rest of the week! I'm staying with Erin, who I met at Interplay, and she's showing me around. But I'm checking into a hostel tomorrow, so I'm going to be flying solo for a little bit! Yesterday we wandered around the top part of Greenwhich Village in between shows, and went to Magnolia bakery, with the amazing cupcakes - so good. Erin's in Hamilton Heights, just near Harlem - very diverse, noisy, but a really cool vibe.

Heading to NikeTown now, to scope some clothes out for my brother. Tomorrow is hostel checkin, walking through Central Park, and possibly the Guggenheim!

Sorry if this is boring. Missing all you guys quite a bit, really.

xd