Trying to post pictures...

I love Halloween! :)

Where is Mazzy?????

Somewhere along the way from Canada to NYC a certain car with AIESECers got lost...

Maybe they just loved Rhode Island as much as I do and got stuck there?
Got invited to some mysterious nude party in one of the Brown dorm buildings?
Got attacked by brown bears in the woods of Canada?
Got drunk in an Irish Pub in Boston and decided not to venture further south?
Got in a fight with each other and split ways somewhere in New Hampshire?
Set up a competition who gets from Boston to NY first with just $5 in their pocket?
Actually never made it to Boston either, because their car got stuck in one of the famous Rhode Island potholes?
Met Suzanne along the way and decided to change plans?
Never actually made it to the US, because they figured Canada is the much better place to be anywhere?
Tried to keep my pants and wants to wait till she grows long enough to wear them?

Who knows... Definitely neither Paul, nor Ali or I...

Happy Easter, Mazzy! Wherever you are!

Free Friday at MoMA

Saw some great exhibitions at MoMA last night. I actually made it to their free Friday for the first time ever. The whole Museum was packed with people. I wonder how many they can let in... it must have been hundreds of people. Saw three excellent exhibitions there:

Thomas Demand (a German photographer) is making paper models of all kinds of things and taking pictures of them. I guess the best one was the "bathtub filled with water". You have to look very close to see that it's made of paper as well. This guy is just great! :)

Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape
Really cool exhibition about contemporary landscape-design projects. I loved the one about the park they made out of an old steel mill close to Duisburg in Germany.

Contemporary Voices: Works from The UBS Art Collection
They had some great pictures and photographies too. Want to see another Gerhard Richter exhibition now!

Glamour

Wow, saw this free exhibition last night. It's showing evening dresses, wonder how you feel wearing one of them. They were absolutely amazing! But the best part about it was the setup of the room. Red carpets, black walls, big mirrors and then the glittery beautiful dresses draped on some of the most beautiful display dummies I've seen so far. Even if you're not into fashion the setup of that room is worth going!

Glamour: Fashion, Film, Fantasy
February 15 - April 16, 2005
FIT Museum, 7th Avenue between 26th and 27th Street

Glamour: Fashion, Film, Fantasy, an exhibition on view February 15 through April 15, 2005, features approximately 100 ultra-glamorous fashions, including dresses worn by stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, and Madonna. Combining “sex appeal plus luxury plus elegance plus romance,” as glamour was described by a Hollywood writer, these clothes are not for the shy.

Bride and Prejudice

So I needed to kill some time the other day and looked for a movie that would play somewhere close to work right between 7 and 9PM. There was not much choice, so I thought why not check out a real chick-flick and see your first Bollywood Movie in quite some time...

It was sooooooooo worth it! One of the funniest things to do, I'll go for more of them for sure! Dancing and singing all the time, a great love story, but not even a kiss! Made me think of the differences between French cinema (you'll see everything, might actually remind you more of some soft porn than a movie), American cinema (you'll see lot's of kissing, dancing and just a little bit of naked skin, but god not real sex!) and then there's Bollywood, where the star just rests her head on the guys shoulder. Sooooo innocent! Sweet! :)

Their website has some really nice Flash animations!
http://www.brideandprejudicethemovie.com/

Samson and Dalila

I just love the Metropolitan Opera. $26 and you're in for one of the most amazing Opera Houses! Carmen was great, but Samson and Dalila was amazing! Much more colorful and modern. It's great to see people there, too. The lady sitting next to us wearing the most amazing colorful costume, the girl who walked through the bar barefoot, the old russian ladies in the elevator bitching about the singers, the chinese guy next to me telling me all about the Met, my friend's smile in her face because she could visit the Met on her short visit in the city, etc...

Made me really happy!

__________________________________

Samson et Dalila

The Philistines

The Tale of Samson

Saint-Saёns’ Samson et Delila is based on Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges. It tells one of the oldest stories in the Bible: the tale of a Hebrew hero, Samson, who reveals the secret of his divine strength to a seductive Philistine woman and is betrayed and ruined by her. Earlier Bible chapters tell of Samson’s Nazerite vow (granting him superior strength) and his rise to heroic status amongst the Hebrews, but Saint-Saëns’ opera focuses on his encounter with Delilah. The names Samson and Delilah themselves mean Day and Night, respectively, in Hebrew, and the opera’s fall/redemption story can be compared to the cycle of night into day.

Some scholars think Samson was a real-life Hebrew hero who led his people in their struggle against the Philistines. As tales of his bravery were told and retold over generations, they grew more and more fantastic. By the time Samson’s story appeared in the Bible (around 600 B.C) Samson had become somewhat of an übermensch: a man of incredible strength capable of killing a thousand Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone. He had also acquired a host of bad habits (womanizing among them) and was given a foil in the character of Delilah.

The fascination of turning rims

Whenever you see a male German come to the US for the first time you just have to be there, when they first see a big SUV with shiny silvery turning rims. You have to see their eyes and the absolute surprise in their face when they see this! It's such a great experience! Most Germans love to see it, think this is sooo american, want to take a picture and tell all their German friends about the crazy shit they saw on a street in NY.

But then there is this little car obsessed subculture in Germany (ok, it's not that little). They usually drive a Golf or BMW, and pretty much spend all their time and money on their baby. The car is their life and of course much more important than any girl could ever be. Some of them want to use those cars to impress the girls, but just try to step on their maticulously clean leather foot mats with your stilettos. They get really scared about scratches, will probably be well prepared with some old newspaper and grumpy for the rest of the day if they didn't manage to get it under your feet before you first touched the holy mat. Well maybe understandable when you think that they probably spent a week's salary on them and then at least an hour a week to keep them clean and shiny. As soon as they present the receipt for the EUR150 leather repair kit to their girl, they probably loose another date and find themselves reconfirmed that their car is the better buddy anyways. So just imagine you are here, when one of them first discovers the turning rim. PRICELESS!!!!

Happened to me yesterday and still makes me smile! German auto-geek sees rims in movie, runs to the next internet cafe to look up prices immediately and is already thinking of how he will best (and cheapest) ship them to Germany. So all his friends coming over will likely have an extra piece of luggage and carry one of the wonderful rims back to Germany.

Makes me think that you can probably make quite some money on selling these rims in Germany.

Beautiful Day

You've got to love New York...
Walking up 7th Avenue at 5PM you still see the winter sun shining at all the tall buildings, the sky is baby blue and beautiful and there's a cold wind blowing in your face, you have to hold your hat! It's freezing! How can such a beautiful day feel so ugly?!?!?!?!

The new German trainee...

... is sooooo German. I know I have an accent, too, but he has the PERFECT German accent! The way he thinks and talks is soooo German, too. Makes me wonder if I really want to go back there right now.

In a way it's funny to hear all these first impressions again: how expensive food is compared to ALDI in Germany, how he really thought New York is so modern and shining and is shocked about the subway and all the old crappy stuff in this city! I hope I'll hear him talk about the charm of New York at some point before he leaves.

Getting started on Nomadlife....

just testing....