Brooklyn Entertainments for the Mild-Mannered
August is, as one already knows, nothing if not a procession of Dog Days, and having not left New Haven for any considerable length of time during August, it would be a time when I'd expect to start feeling a bit antsy, yes. And I did. So I went to New York last weekend to hang out with Mandy, and to meet up briefly with a couple of other people, and in between to watch that Donkey Kong movie.
Good times, especially a healthy chunk of Saturday that was spent in Brooklyn. It's nice to start your Dog Day in New Haven and end up in Brooklyn! I didn't often go to Brooklyn when I lived in Queens; it takes forever to get to Brooklyn from Queens.
And what does one do in Brooklyn on an afternoon during the Dog Days? If you said, "Attempt a high-stakes bank heist with Al Pacino," then congratulations, you're John Cazale. But to that I say, "Not so fast, Fredo, I don't have those kinds of Hollywood connections, and I'm not out looking for trouble anyway." And to that you say nothing, because you died in 1978. But don't feel bad: all 5 feature films you starred in were nominated for Best Picture, and now there's a theater named after you at Broadway and 76th Street. (Thanks, the Internet!)
I was going somewhere with this.
The Brooklyn Museum is much different than I expected: larger, for one thing, and invested with a peculiar kind of middlebrow energy. At least it was in the contemporary art & American art wings that Mandy & I wandered to.
They have a large collection of feminist art, and like most "statement" art it's hit-and-miss, some pieces being aesthetically compelling, some making their statement and then just hanging there awkwardly till you move on. The centerpiece is Judy Chicago's room-sized installation The Dinner Party, from '74; you can read about it at the museum website and get the general idea. Despite the hammer-subtle thematic approach (best described as "strongly vaginal," in a Julianne-Moore-in-The-Big-Lebowski voice) it's engrossing; I like the craftwork of the plates & placemats and the way the mirror-black, triangular room suggests a '70s Space Odyssey aesthetic.
The American art wing has walls painted in various unexpected colors (bright purple; lime green and baby blue) and juxtaposes romantic landscapes and portraiture with modern paintings and contemporary abstract pieces. This is what I mean by peculiar middlebrow energy; the place basically shouts Hey, LOOK at all this AMERICAN ART! There's SO MANY KINDS of it!" My favorite piece, in a quiet corner, was a Mark Rothko painting from the '30s of an abstracted subway station. I've never seen a non-color-field Rothko before, and now I'm curious why, since this one had an appealing, odd personality.
In contrast to your truly A-list museums there are no landmark pieces here; no Timbres, Espace, Mouvement, no Sunday in the Park with George. But they do have a Cold Storage Facility, or at least that's what I like to call it: a large, heavily air-conditioned room where they have non-exhibited pieces on display in ceiling-height, plexiglass-plated metal shelves. I don't like looking at 18th-century furniture, but I do like looking at a ceiling-height metal shelf labeled "18th-century furniture" that's full of chairs.
If you say "Brooklyn Museum" to your coworkers who know about the art world, they'll kind of say "Oh yeah, the Brooklyn Museum" and note that they tellingly changed the name from the "Brooklyn Art Museum" a few years back.
The Museum is adjacent to the excellent Brooklyn Botanical Garden, itself part of the majestic Prospect Park. We didn't have time to spend in either, which was just as well since, again, Dog Day: like 85 and humid.
There are all kinds of places to eat in Park Slope, particularly along 5th Avenue. The thing to do is to write down a few options in the morning from the Time Out New York website, and then decide they're all too fancy and expensive and sit down in a tony little sandwich shop instead. Hey, fresh-squeezed lemonade!
Bargemusic is a year-long chamber music series that floats in the East River at Fulton Ferry landing; they don't attract top-of-the-heap acts, but it's comfortable and unpretentious and worth checking out. Saturday night's performance came courtesy of a string quartet whose name eludes me; you might see them, Pete, since they're an ensemble-in-residence at your new school. The Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor is an astounding piece, and it got an enjoyable performance, though not an indelible one.
Mahler's single movement of teenage Piano Quartet and Edvard Grieg's half-finished Second Quartet, which comprised the first half of the program, are not particularly good pieces, particularly when you haven't yet gotten used to the barge going up and down, up and down. The acoustics gave the strings a bit of a weepy sound, too.
Next to Bargemusic is the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, and it's well worth waiting a half hour for your cone. Oh the sweet sweet blissful melty part.
And then the Brooklyn Bridge is right there, so you can walk back to Manhattan under that chalky, starless nightsky Toni Morrison's so fond of.
If there's one thing to say in conclusion, it's that I'm about to have dinner with my roommate, so this is as far as this post is going to get.
Good times, especially a healthy chunk of Saturday that was spent in Brooklyn. It's nice to start your Dog Day in New Haven and end up in Brooklyn! I didn't often go to Brooklyn when I lived in Queens; it takes forever to get to Brooklyn from Queens.
And what does one do in Brooklyn on an afternoon during the Dog Days? If you said, "Attempt a high-stakes bank heist with Al Pacino," then congratulations, you're John Cazale. But to that I say, "Not so fast, Fredo, I don't have those kinds of Hollywood connections, and I'm not out looking for trouble anyway." And to that you say nothing, because you died in 1978. But don't feel bad: all 5 feature films you starred in were nominated for Best Picture, and now there's a theater named after you at Broadway and 76th Street. (Thanks, the Internet!)
I was going somewhere with this.
The Brooklyn Museum is much different than I expected: larger, for one thing, and invested with a peculiar kind of middlebrow energy. At least it was in the contemporary art & American art wings that Mandy & I wandered to.
They have a large collection of feminist art, and like most "statement" art it's hit-and-miss, some pieces being aesthetically compelling, some making their statement and then just hanging there awkwardly till you move on. The centerpiece is Judy Chicago's room-sized installation The Dinner Party, from '74; you can read about it at the museum website and get the general idea. Despite the hammer-subtle thematic approach (best described as "strongly vaginal," in a Julianne-Moore-in-The-Big-Lebowski voice) it's engrossing; I like the craftwork of the plates & placemats and the way the mirror-black, triangular room suggests a '70s Space Odyssey aesthetic.
The American art wing has walls painted in various unexpected colors (bright purple; lime green and baby blue) and juxtaposes romantic landscapes and portraiture with modern paintings and contemporary abstract pieces. This is what I mean by peculiar middlebrow energy; the place basically shouts Hey, LOOK at all this AMERICAN ART! There's SO MANY KINDS of it!" My favorite piece, in a quiet corner, was a Mark Rothko painting from the '30s of an abstracted subway station. I've never seen a non-color-field Rothko before, and now I'm curious why, since this one had an appealing, odd personality.
In contrast to your truly A-list museums there are no landmark pieces here; no Timbres, Espace, Mouvement, no Sunday in the Park with George. But they do have a Cold Storage Facility, or at least that's what I like to call it: a large, heavily air-conditioned room where they have non-exhibited pieces on display in ceiling-height, plexiglass-plated metal shelves. I don't like looking at 18th-century furniture, but I do like looking at a ceiling-height metal shelf labeled "18th-century furniture" that's full of chairs.
If you say "Brooklyn Museum" to your coworkers who know about the art world, they'll kind of say "Oh yeah, the Brooklyn Museum" and note that they tellingly changed the name from the "Brooklyn Art Museum" a few years back.
The Museum is adjacent to the excellent Brooklyn Botanical Garden, itself part of the majestic Prospect Park. We didn't have time to spend in either, which was just as well since, again, Dog Day: like 85 and humid.
There are all kinds of places to eat in Park Slope, particularly along 5th Avenue. The thing to do is to write down a few options in the morning from the Time Out New York website, and then decide they're all too fancy and expensive and sit down in a tony little sandwich shop instead. Hey, fresh-squeezed lemonade!
Bargemusic is a year-long chamber music series that floats in the East River at Fulton Ferry landing; they don't attract top-of-the-heap acts, but it's comfortable and unpretentious and worth checking out. Saturday night's performance came courtesy of a string quartet whose name eludes me; you might see them, Pete, since they're an ensemble-in-residence at your new school. The Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor is an astounding piece, and it got an enjoyable performance, though not an indelible one.
Mahler's single movement of teenage Piano Quartet and Edvard Grieg's half-finished Second Quartet, which comprised the first half of the program, are not particularly good pieces, particularly when you haven't yet gotten used to the barge going up and down, up and down. The acoustics gave the strings a bit of a weepy sound, too.
Next to Bargemusic is the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, and it's well worth waiting a half hour for your cone. Oh the sweet sweet blissful melty part.
And then the Brooklyn Bridge is right there, so you can walk back to Manhattan under that chalky, starless nightsky Toni Morrison's so fond of.
If there's one thing to say in conclusion, it's that I'm about to have dinner with my roommate, so this is as far as this post is going to get.
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