NYC Day 23: Sunday in The Park and Native-Canadians at SummerStage

Central Park's Harlem Meer at 110th Street.

Harlem Meer Performance Festival: Something Positive
The 24th annual Harlem Meer Performance Festival brings the best local talent in music and dance to Central Park! Enjoy jazz, Latin, world, and gospel music while admiring the lakeside views. All ages are welcome. Location: Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, Central Park (inside the Park at 110th Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues).

I made it to the Harlem Meer event in time to catch the performance by Something Positive before a very appreciative audience of mostly local Harlemites, and visitors to the city, like myself. Something Positive are described as an "...ensemble of international dancers, singers, and musicians [performing] a mix of Afro-Caribbean traditional and dance music with a blend of poetry, storytelling, and theater."

The show encompassed all of the above description, and the ensemble of five or six dancers, three percussionists, the leader singer/storyteller and a chorus line of three women, kept the mood party-like throughout the performance by encouraging audience participation by teaching us chorus lines to sing, and by getting audience members to get up and join the dancing at appropriate times.

Conservatory Gardens, Central Park
From the Harlem Meer, I walked down to one of my favorite sections of Central Park, the beautifully maintained Conservatory Gardens. I find it impossible today to create a picture in my mind that depicts this area of the park as desolate, abandoned and dangerous. All words that once described the area before the Central Park Conservancy began to rehabilitate the area during the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Today the well manicured lawns, hedges, and vast swathes of flowering gardens are a delight to walk through and enjoy.

The Conservatory Garden is Central Park's six-acre formal garden. It is divided into three smaller gardens, each with a distinct style: Italian, French, and English. The Garden's main entrance is through the Vanderbilt Gate, on Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets. This magnificent iron gate, made in Paris in 1894, originally stood before the Vanderbilt mansion at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street. 

The Italianate center garden is composed of a large lawn surrounded by yew hedges and is bordered by two exquisite allées of spring-blooming pink and white crabapple trees. A 12-foot high jet fountain plays on the western end of the lawn, backed by tiered hedges and stairs that lead up to a wisteria pergola. On the walkway under the pergola are medallions inscribed with the names of the original 13 states. 

Above and Below: Conservatory Gardens in Central Park.

The northern, French-style garden showcases parterres of germander and spectacular seasonal displays of spring tulips, and Korean chrysanthemums in autumn, all within an ellipse of Japanese holly. In the center is the charming Three Dancing Maidens fountain by German sculptor, Walter Schott. 

To the south is the very intimate English-style garden. There are five mixed borders of trees, shrubs and perennial plants, and five seasonal beds featuring spring bulbs that are followed by annual flower displays. A slope of woodland plants lines the western edge of this garden. At the center is sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh's lovely Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain, a tribute to the author of the children's book, The Secret Garden. The children — a girl and a boy, said to depict Mary and Dickon, the main characters from the classic — stand at one end of a small water lily pool.

From the Conservatory Gardens it was time to make my way towards the evenings main event, a celebration of contemporary Native-Canadian culture at the Rumsey Playfield, where three acts from north of the border were getting ready to rock the night. The event was just one of a hundred or so free concerts in the annual SummerStage [www.summerstage.org/] series of concerts that take place across all five New York boroughs. First up was Iskwé.

Promo image of Native-Canadian performer, Iskwé

Iskwé

Hailing from Winnipeg in central Canada, the wonderfully diverse Iskwé is of Irish and Cree/Dene lineage. Her full name, in Cree, translates to “Blue Sky Women”; Iskwé alone means “women,” and she chose this solitary moniker to represent both her culture and passion for shedding light on female causes and struggles. Strongly attached to her origins and spirituality, the skilled singer/songwriter instills her work with powerful elements of her heritage. Her voice is potent and luminous, her style a jazzy medley of trip hop and R&B. She attributes her inimitable sound to her “mixed indigenous and Irish ancestry,” as this cross-cultural experience had made an indelible mark on her life and music. A perfectionist with her work, her first album, the self-titled 2013 masterpiece Iskwé, took eight full years to produce. She subsequently released several singles to address the everyday atrocities that indigenous women must endure, including the heartbreaking 2015 track “Nobody Knows.” Her stage performances are bold and stunning; in tandem with her vital music, often she strikingly paints her face in the tradition of her Cree people.

A Tribe Called Red 

Oh, Canada! For those unfamiliar with “pow wow,” a chanting & drumming performed by North American Native people, Ottawa-based A Tribe Called Red will whole-heartedly introduce you to it – mixed with electronic rhythms, hip-hop, moombahton, reggae and dubstep, naturally. Their gloriously inimitable sound (which some refer to as ‘powwow-step’) has been transforming urban club culture in Ontario and beyond, helping electronic music fans to significantly broaden their horizons. The present roster includes DJ NDN, Bear Witness and 2oolman, and with their fantastically feral live shows/parties (replete with original, politically inspired visual art pieces and videos), they have been disseminating their message of aboriginal heritage embracement through wildly fun music.

The SummerStage performance space and part of the audience waiting for the show to kick off.

Buffy Sainte-Marie looks at things differently. Since her very first release in 1964, It’s My Way, this luminous singer-songwriter, a member of the Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, has viewed music as not just a means of personal expression, but as a way to effectively disseminate messages of peace to the global community. A prominent activist, pacifist, educator and visual artist, she split time in the ‘60s between NYC’s Greenwich Village, and Toronto’s equivalent, Yorkville. While performing next to the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, she naturally set herself apart from other “folk” musicians, with a sometimes ephemeral, sometimes booming voice rife with culture, history and visionary ways of viewing humanity and our relationship with the earth. A Juno, Golden Globe & Oscar winner, Sainte-Marie has been recognized as an innovator with her protest anthems (“Universal Soldier”), her startlingly honest take on addiction (in the much-covered “Cod’ine”), her incidental pop-crossover mega-hit “Up Where We Belong,” and her most recent album Power in the Blood, a beautifully unapologetic look at identity and our place in the universe.

Tonight's show marked the third time that I have seen Buffy Sainte-Marie in concert, and I continue to be amazed by the power of her high-energy performances. I've said it before, but I'm happy to repeat the observation that I'm sure is not unique to me: Buffy Sainte-Marie may be in her mid-70s, but you would swear she was thirty years younger, so dynamic is she as a live performer.

This is one singer that I am more than happy to see for a fourth, fifth and subsequent times if the opportunity presents itself.

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Sunday 9, July | Expenses $32.50 ($42.80)

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NYC Day 22: A Day On The Lam

My first stop of the day was the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe at 126, Crosby Street. Unfortunately, the store is located in what I consider to be an out of way location that is not easy to reach -- at least when coming from Washington Heights by subway. The store is having a  30% off New York City related books and of course I was keen to see what they had to offer. Frankly, I was very disappointed. I expected to find dozens of books relating to New York City waiting to be consumed by eager readers. Instead I saw a couple of tables each holding a dozen or so mostly obscure books.

To be sure the bookcase set aside for books about New York was standing in the same place, and that had several dozen more books lined up on its shelves, but the much anticipated glut of titles that I was hoping for simply did not exist. Did I say already how much I was disappointed?

To my surprise, I saw what I can only assume to be the very same copy of the collected editions of New Yorker magazine that I had contemplated buying last year still on the top shelf of that bookcase. The editions are contained on a set of four CDs -- or were they DVDs? Anyway, there is was. Maybe it is my destiny to purchase it this time around.

In the end I bought three non-New York titles: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver; Lost In The City, by Edward P. Jones (who is also the author of The Known World); and The March, by E.L. Doctorow. Both the Carver and Jones books are collections of short stories. I started the Carver collection on the train ride home, and was immediately delighted with my purchase. Initially I had thought I might return the book to Housing Works once I finish it, but now I might just have to take it back to Australia with me.

The massive atrium at Brookfield Place

Towers of glass and steel at Brookfield Place

Having decided to make my way to Brookfield Place after visiting the bookstore, I came up for air out of the subway near City Hall. As I walked by City Hall Park, I glanced to my left and looked towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Let me tell you, if I thought the Museum of Modern Art was crowded on Friday night, it turns out that it was nothing compared with the crush of people packed onto the narrow pedestrian walkway across the bridge. Man, it looked like they were shoulder to shoulder, and bumper to bumper from Manhattan all the way to Brooklyn! I don't think I will be walking the Brooklyn Bridge anytime soon. If I do, I think I will leave it until September when most of the summer tourist rush will be over. Mind you, I have made that walk numerous times on previous visits so I am in no rush to do so again -- at least not while there are thousands of other visitors doing so at the same time.

I spent several hours in the vacinity of Brookfield Place relaxing and taking in the views across the Hudson River of the New Jersey skyline. The cool breeze coming off the river was also a good reason to be sitting on a bench watching cruise boats, sailing craft, local ferries, jet ski riders, and private boat operators coming and going in an endless stream of activity. But the life of the river is not all fun and games. Keen watchers will also see the water police monitoring the activities of recreational water craft, and then there are the working tug boats pushing barges upriver (or down river) at the turn of the tides.

Looking forward to the OK GO gig in particular.

This plaza is made for partying and relaxing.

I wish I had access to photos from my first visit to New York in 2008 so that I could add them to this blog for comparison. The rise and rise of tall buildings along the New Jersey shoreline continues apace, and there is no reason to think that the proliferation of ever higher construction is going to stop anytime soon. After all, why should the skyscrapers on Manhattan be the only ones dominating the skyline along the river? And I bet an apartment in a New Jersey tower can be had for a lot less than one in a Manhattan complex. Not only that, but I also think the view of the Manhattan skyline from New Jersey is a lot more interesting than the view of the New Jersey skyline from Manhattan.

Week Three Expenses (Figures in brackets are Australian dollar amounts)

Museum Memberships $19.15 ($25.15) | 

AT&T SIM card $13.60 ($17.85) | Ongoing weekly

MTA Pass $28.00 ($36.80) | expenses $212.75 ($279.80)

Accommodation $152.00 ($200.00) |

Sunday, July 2 | Expenses $144.80 ($193.30)

Monday, July 3 | Expenses $15.00 ($19.75)

Tuesday, July 4 | Expenses $38.00 ($49.85)

Wednesday, July 5 | Expenses $19.00 ($25.00)

Thursday, July 6| Expenses $78.00 ($102.90)

Friday, July 7 | Expenses $22.00 ($29.00)

Saturday, July 8| Expenses $60.60 ($79.65)

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TOTAL: USD$590.15 | AUD$779.25

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NYC Day 21: In Which I Visit Robert Rauschenberg at MoMA

Click images to view full sized

Rauschenberg at the Museum of Modern Art
I returned to the Museum of Modern Art this afternoon, planning to catch up on a couple of major exhibitions that I have yet to immerse myself in, and was immediately assailed by thousands of other visitors who had decided to do the very same thing. Talk about crowded! It took me some time to remember that MoMA, like a number of other museums across the city, offer free entry to all-comers on Friday evenings -- and by gawd, they turned out in force.

I spent the bulk of my time examining the very extensive Robert Rauschenberg Among Friends exhibition. As the title implies, not only are visitors treated to a wide range of Rauschenberg's abstract art, but friends such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Susan Weil, and others are represented in the more than 250 works on show.

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Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He became the recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of his more than 40 years of fruitful artmaking. [Source: Wikipedia...]

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Let me be perfectly frank with you, dear reader, abstract art is not at the top of my list of favorite art styles or genres, and I confess that more than once I have said the same things you have probably said when confronted with some abstract or modern art, "Even I could do that!" The fact that I haven't 'done that', I guess is the difference between myself and Robert Rauschenberg, and it most definitely is the reason that his art is hanging in the Museum of Modern Art (and in many other galleries and art museums around the world), and my art is not!

I would love to be able to explain the intricacies and raison d'etre of Rauschenberg's work, but that is way outside my area of expertise so I will have to leave it to you to do your own research on this area of art and the artists who practice it and who continue to push the boundaries of what art, all art, is.

It's a cop out on my part I know, but I will let Rauschenberg's art speak for itself (now there's a cliche if ever there was.)

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I will also refer you to Wikipedia and share a brief quote from that site on Abstract Art:

Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time. [Source: Wikipedia...]

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Sunday 9, July | Expenses $32.50 ($42.80)
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NYC Day 20: In Which I Go Gardening at New York Botanical Garden (sort of)

I was never much of a gardener. Even when I had my own home with what little passed for a suburban garden, I did the bare minimum to maintain what few flowers survived despite my indifference and neglect. Maybe the fact that I used to suffer (and occasionally still do), from severe bouts of hay fever had something to do with it, but now that I seem to have outgrown that annual debilitating reaction to pollens and other allergens, I still spend as little time as possible pottering in gardens.

So it was as much a surprise to me as it might be to those who know me, that today found me in the Bronx visiting the New York Botanical Garden. In four previous visits to New York I had never made it to either the Botanical Garden or to the Bronx Zoo. Today I was tempted to visit the zoo, but remembered that Wednesdays are 'pay-what-you-wish' days at the zoo, and it being Thursday today, I decided to leave that institution for another week.

"The New York Botanical Garden is a botanical garden and National Historic Landmark... The 250-acre (100 ha) site's verdant landscape supports over one million living plants in extensive collections. Each year over one million visitors visit the garden's remarkable diversity of tropical, temperate, and desert flora, as well as programming that ranges from exhibitions in the Haupt Conservatory to festivals on Daffodil Hill." [Source: Wikipedia]

While I freely admit that I was never much of a gardener, that does not mean that a well maintained plot of land does not interest me, and to my surprise I enjoyed my visit far more than I thought I would. It might have had something to do with escaping the mad rush of Manhattan's crowded noise filled streets. You can almost convince yourself that you are out in the country far from Midtown as you amble slowly along well kept paths, past towering sequoia's, and thousands of flowering plants, acres of manicured lawns, and clipped hedgerows.

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Come to think of it, you are far from Midtown, and you are in what little is left of once open countryside. However, the ever present hum of surrounding traffic, and the distant sound of car horns and the sirens of emergency service vehicles provides a constant reminder that the city is just 'out there' waiting to swallow you up when you leave the relative peace and quiet of the gardens.

As noted in the quote from Wikipedia, a regular schedule of exhibitions are programmed throughout the year at the Botanical Garden, and currently the exhibition of note is that of the American glass blowing artist/sculptor, Dale Chihuly. Simply titled, CHIHULY, the exhibition runs now through until October 29, 2017, and presents dozens of stunning creations that defy the imagination. That something as fragile as glass can be colored, heated, bent, twisted, and shaped into the myriad forms that Dale Chihuly manages to achieve, has to be seen to be believed.

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Numerous large sculptural works are placed throughout the grounds of the garden, and are waiting to be discovered as visitors walk around the huge site. Others are on display in the gallery's of the LuEsther T. Merton Library, while still more are placed carefully throughout the massive Enid A. Haupt Conservatory -- a wonderful architectural gem if ever there was one.

By the way, if you find the prospect of walking for hours around the 250-acre site daunting, fear not. The Botanical Garden has very thoughtfully provided people movers (or trams as they are called), that follow a long winding circuit around the grounds with stops at a number of key locations where visitors can alight or rejoin the trams As they circle the site. A pre-recorded audio commentary is played throughout the ride which draws attention to a range of trees and plants, landscape features of interest, and historical information about the gardens and their formation.

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As you would expect, there are daily tours that focus on different areas of interest to visitors, such as the Perennial Garden, Native Plant Garden, Thain Family Forest, a Bird Walk, Notable Trees, the Conservatory, and others. In addition, musical performances are also programmed over the summer months. I left the site just after 6:00pm, but if I had stayed on I could have enjoyed live music from performers that were setting up equipment on a temporary stage. The music was due to begin at 7:00pm and go through until 10:00pm, but after five hours or so on site, I was more than ready to call it a day.

There are two major dining options at the Botanical Garden; the Hudson Garden Grill is the more upmarket of the two, with waiters on staff to administer to your every need. The Pine Tree Cafe located by the main entrance is a far more casual affair, and I suspect a more economical option as well. There are also a number of very casual 'street food' style  dining options available. These are provided by the Burger Truck, and The Cantina, both of which operate from Tuesday to Sunday. Meanwhile the Taco Truck and the Conservatory Plaza Bar are advertised as operating on weekends only. However, I did see the Taco Truck setting up for service this evening near the stage before I left, so you never know. Also according to the weekly What's On sheet, since the last four dining options mentioned above are outdoor venues, they are open "Weather permitting."

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Oh, and most importantly, the restrooms were large, clean and well maintained. And no, I don't have photos of those. You wilI just have to take my word for it.

Finally, if I, an indifferent gardener, could find much to enjoy and appreciate at the New York Botanical Garden, I can only imagine that keen gardeners will feel they have found a little piece of heaven right there in the Bronx -- and who would have ever thought that? If you have the time and the interest, I have no hesitation recommending a visit.

IF YOU GO
2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx.
Open: Tuesday through Sunday
Hours: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Prices: Adult: $23; Senior: $20;
Phone: +1 718-817-8700
Online: www.nybg.org/

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Wednesday, July 6 | Expenses $78.00 ($102.90)

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NYC Day 19: In Which I Wander from one Museum to Another via Central Park

A bucolic Central Park vista (click images to view full size).

My list of things to do today included some free jazz music at the American Folk Art Museum, and more free music at the Rubin Museum of Art (part of their Spiral Music Series). In the end I missed both of them due to a very slow start to my day. Instead I elected to visit the Met Breuer again, but left my arrival so late that I barely got in 45 minutes of quality time at that address.

In fact, all I really got to do with spend some time with the Brazilian artist Lygia Pape, and her exhibition and wonderful Tteias installations as seen below. This work uses metallic thread woven in columns from floor to ceiling or wall to wall. Placed in a darkened room and dramatically lit, Tteia 1, C (as the work in this exhibition is called), is composed of golden thread that appear luminous and ethereal, like beams of sunlight entering a room. The photo does it do this huge installation justice so if you have a chance to see the work for yourselves, I urge you to do so.

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Tteia 1, C

Above: A series of four works called Book of Paths (and numbered 1-4)

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From the Breuer I decided to walk across the lower part of Central Park and slowly make my way towards Columbus Circle where I planned to get something to eat. One of the many things I love about New York City is the way the city has a way of undermining all your favorite perceptions about the city and its people. Personally I think you can blame Hollywood and the major television networks for an endless series of crimes shows that portray the city in a less than favorable light.

My experience however, reveals a city of (mostly) well maintained parks and gardens, some equipped with dog runs and almost all the larger ones equipped with playgrounds and water features for the little ones, or basketball courts for the older teens and young adults. The really large parks may have baseball or softball diamonds, and from what I have observed they are always well patronized and popular.

A walk through neighborhood streets often reveal overflowing flower-filled window boxes and sidewalk flowerbeds, a vibrant street life with food vendors ranging from mobile food vans to the smaller single operator stand selling ice cream, sliced fruits, knick-knacks and  knock-offs of more famous brand name products such as perfumes, sunglasses, handbags, watches and cheap jewelry, among many other items.

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Of course, the other side of this idyll is also plain to see: trash filled rubbish bins spilling their styrofoam containers, plastic cutlery, takeaway coffee containers, and plastic and glass soda bottles (most, if not all of which could be redeemed for the .5c deposit). The ever present wail of emergency service vehicles, the incessant blaring of car, bus, and truck horns, the rumble of the underground subway trains (or the 24-hour overhead roar of trains on the few remaining elevated lines in the outer boroughs, and on and on and on. Oh, and let's not forget the rodents and roaches, and the doggy-doo that one has to keep a constant look out for since many dog owners still refuse to 'Curb Your Dog', as the sidewalk signs urge.

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Above and below: The bedrock of Manhattan is super hard stone called Gneis, or Manhattan Schist. 

These outcroppings in Central Park give you a sense of what really lies beneath the city..  

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Having rambled across Central Park, and then finding myself in the vacinity of Columbus Circle, or more accurately in the vacinity of the Lincoln Center, imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was standing in front of the American Folk Art Museum. The jazz musicians were long gone, and once again I had around 45-minutes to check out the two major exhibitions taking place at the museum, but of course in I went anyway.

The two artists on show are men I have never heard of (a far more common occurrence than not). The Italian artist, Carlo Zinelli (1916-1974), is described by Wikipedia (www.en.wikipedia) as an "outsider artist who suffered from schizophrenia. The other artist on show, also now deceased, is Eugene Gabritschevsky (1893-1979), a Russian biologist by profession, and artist by sentiment. Obviously I did not have enough time to fully examine and appreciate the work of these two artists, but now that I have found my way to the museum, I will definitely return for a more leisurely look and write more then.

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Tuesday 5, July | Expenses $19.00 ($25.00)

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NOTE: My daily expenses do not take into account accommodation, transport, temporary phone account, or museum memberships since I am accounting for these monthly expenses at the end of each week. For the record these four line items add USD$28.45 or AUD$37.42 per day to my daily expenses. Maybe I should just include them in my daily account to avoid confusion. Maybe. I'll see how I feel at the end of this week.