Arbus & Demand

Friday was pretty much one of the best days I've had in some time. I arrived @ 6:30 AM and took a nap and then in the afternoon, walked through Central Park and checked out the Met (call me a sucker but that was the first time I've actually paid more than a buck to enter!), MOMA, Bergdorfs, and Barneys (I had time to kill) before meeting up with my family at BLT STEAK (don't go: overrated big time). It was grey and chilly out but that didn't bother me at all: it wasn't much different from the weather in LA the past few weeks or so (though it's gotten better of late). Even though I was by myself, I never felt alone.
The Arbus show at the Met was comprehensive though the recreated studio and library shelves were silly in a very caveman diorama-y kind of way. Arbus is sort of brilliant at making you feel both contempt and love toward those weirdos in her pictures. It's not pornographic in the way that pictures of homeless folk are, but there's something Coen Brothers-y about her interest in freaks. The trust and intimacy she shared with her often abject subjects is pretty rare: she would've made an amazing filmmaker.
The Thomas Demand show at the MOMA was good too, but maybe a few years too late. The line to get in was way long, but admission was free and the teenage girls behind me had foul mouths so it wasn't without its perks. The pictures were beautiful but I didn't care much for what he was saying with them (pictures qua constructed reality viz. photos qua analogue of the real world). It's so German and G. Richter's examined the same concern w/ greater clarity in his paintings but like I said Demand's photographs were beautiful. He'd be an amazing dp/production designer.
Friday night was spent with friends at Pravda. I'm such a sucker for K. McNally's joints. I didn't see too much Eurotrash: thank god for the Meatpacking District! Oh, check out CRUISING to see what the Meatpacking District was like in the 80s. VERY DIFFERENT.
Saturday's draft went well though I don't have a single Met on my team like I planned to. Maybe this is for the better. Talking baseball w/ 11 dudes in a conference room for 5 hours: little else is better than that on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The sprint back to the East Coast was just what I needed though having mom and dad tell me I had to get married before 30 could've been funnier.

LOVE
ALEX