I can now say that I have been to NYC--and, in the words of Camden/Green and music of Bernstein, "It's a helluv a town." It felt like Portland to me--only bigger, with bigger buildings, more people, shops, culture, and history, and a lot more noise. It's the "grown-up" version of Pdx. I was comfy and able to enjoy it without being over-awed by years of movie/tv/book build-up to the experience.
The noise was the startling thing (which is semi-ironic as I had gone to contribute more noise to the cityscape). No place was quiet. By the time I arrived back in Portland, I felt aurally berated.*
I had no idea that the city butts the water quite that closely--at JFK, the landing strips seem to overlay the illusion of land; I'm surprised flooding isn't more of an issue. The transit system was just like Portland's, only dirtier, smellier, and more underground (one escalator seemed to raise me almost completely vertically the length of a football field). While in the subway, I kept my eyes peeled for Mole People, but mostly saw a lot of nothing because it is very dark down there.
MoMA was exceptional. It was so exciting to be in place where hundreds of people queue for art at 10:30 a.m. on a Wednesday! I loved the design gallery, the Pollocks, work by an artist named Kiki Smith, and a series from Lisa Yuskavage. And then I walked around a corner, and there she was: Christina.
I have loved Andrew Wyeth's painting "Christina's World" since I was a little girl growing up in the Hoosier land, surrounded by fields of corn. The painting always seemed slightly melancholy--a solitary figure in a sea of grass, far from home--and I felt a kinship with her. How much lonelier I felt when I learned that the real Christina had been Wyeth's crippled neighbor; she would drag herself out to work in the fields each day and home at dusk to make dinner.
Suddenly, in the midst of New York and all its noise, I was there with Christina in her prairie world. My head was quiet for the first time (the only time) that day. And for the first time, I saw her strength, her hope, her happiness. Wyeth had painted her in a pink dress that glowed amidst the golden grain; her arms are strong, her fingers show her determination, her head held high; her world was beautiful and un-pityable.
*In the interest of full disclosure, I may have been tipped over the edge by the row of screaming children directly behind my airplane seat.
The noise was the startling thing (which is semi-ironic as I had gone to contribute more noise to the cityscape). No place was quiet. By the time I arrived back in Portland, I felt aurally berated.*
I had no idea that the city butts the water quite that closely--at JFK, the landing strips seem to overlay the illusion of land; I'm surprised flooding isn't more of an issue. The transit system was just like Portland's, only dirtier, smellier, and more underground (one escalator seemed to raise me almost completely vertically the length of a football field). While in the subway, I kept my eyes peeled for Mole People, but mostly saw a lot of nothing because it is very dark down there.
MoMA was exceptional. It was so exciting to be in place where hundreds of people queue for art at 10:30 a.m. on a Wednesday! I loved the design gallery, the Pollocks, work by an artist named Kiki Smith, and a series from Lisa Yuskavage. And then I walked around a corner, and there she was: Christina.
I have loved Andrew Wyeth's painting "Christina's World" since I was a little girl growing up in the Hoosier land, surrounded by fields of corn. The painting always seemed slightly melancholy--a solitary figure in a sea of grass, far from home--and I felt a kinship with her. How much lonelier I felt when I learned that the real Christina had been Wyeth's crippled neighbor; she would drag herself out to work in the fields each day and home at dusk to make dinner.
Suddenly, in the midst of New York and all its noise, I was there with Christina in her prairie world. My head was quiet for the first time (the only time) that day. And for the first time, I saw her strength, her hope, her happiness. Wyeth had painted her in a pink dress that glowed amidst the golden grain; her arms are strong, her fingers show her determination, her head held high; her world was beautiful and un-pityable.
*In the interest of full disclosure, I may have been tipped over the edge by the row of screaming children directly behind my airplane seat.
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