I love New York

[New York City]

I have been loving New York! Today is another beautiful day, with that crisp clear wind and sun that I miss about American winters.

On this trip it has come home to me how much I miss by not living in my own country. It's so much easier to see old friends, to make connections, to get ahead, when you're in your own country and know the ropes and can meet the friends of friends and their friends. Even though I speak good French, and even good German, and have lived in Europe a long time, here everything is easy and comfortable like putting on an old pair of slippers. I am sure that if I had had a place to go back to, I would have wanted to come back to the U.S.. But I don't have that place, and the only place for me would have had to be New York, and I've never wanted to live in New York.

It's a fun place to visit, though. Yesterday I went to MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, with a friend who is an artist and museum employee and got us in for free. That was nice, because admission is twenty dollars per person. I guess that explains why the museum had that empty feel about it. Even the most famous paintings, like Rousseau's sleeping gypsy or Dali's watches or Van Gogh's starry night, had no one in front of them. I hadn't been back to the museum since it was renovated a few years ago. It had completely changed inside and was very pleasant and easy to get around, but I was happy to see the sculpture garden was the same.

It was the last day of the Pixar exhibit, which showed the art of the people who created "Shrek," "Toy Story,"  "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," and "Monster Inc." There is a new "Cars" movie, with cars as characters, coming out that was advertised during the Superbowl, and it looks fun too, with a snaggle-toothed hillbilly demolition-derby truck and a cool sports car. The exhibit did a good job of making you appreciate the artistic talent and effort that goes into these movies. My artist friend has no children and had not seen any of the movies. I'm afraid I have seen all of them. I noticed that almost all the artists featured in the show were either born abroad or over forty years old. My friend said that that is because in the United States, no one has been taught how to draw for the past forty years. The art schools have emphasized other things. But now there is a gradual return to it.

The most wonderful thing I saw at the museum is something that you can't see, only hear. It was a roomful of speakers on stands, an installation by Janet Cardiff. But it made tears come to my eyes, it was so beautiful. It is a choir singing "Spem in alium*," a forty-part motet written in the 1500s by Thomas Tallis, and performed by forty voices of the Trinity College Choir of Cambridge University. Each speaker is one voice. You walk in and you don't know where to look. When you walk around the room, you hear each speaker as a separate part and as part of the whole. The speaker nearest the door is a vibrating bass that sounds like the earth itself. It was something I would love to own. It was awe-inspiring.

My friend doesn't have much money. A artist of this success in France would have a government-subsidized studio apartment in Paris, and probably a guaranteed income. Much pleasanter for the artist, but it's true that France is not the art scene now that it was when Van Gogh had to beg from his brother to live and Henri Rousseau was buried in a pauper's grave.

*"Spem in alium" explained here.

Comments

[The Bold Soul]

Isn't MOMA just the BEST? I went last year shortly after they reopened (post-renovation) because I had to get my fix of Van Gogh's "Starry Night"... my absolute favorite painting of all time. And to think, it's here in New York instead of in Paris with most of the other great Impressionist and post-Impressionist works. Looks like you really enjoyed yourself, too. I'll have to go back to hear that musical piece, I don't recall that being their last year.

[Nanny Molly]

Dear,it is Thomas Tallis who deserves the honor for his genius. I am mystified how arranging speakers qualifies someone as an artist. "Spem in Alium" is one of my faves, though my associate, Nanny Tina prefers Old Blue Eyes. As to your artist friend, no,dear, artists here don't make money. It is dealers who make money.

I hope you visited Tribeca and maybe you saw us on the street. We are simply delectable looking and know everything. I just returned from a week in trance, that isn't a typo, not a week in France, but a week in the Out There. Come visit us at NannyWorld. We need readers and we'll visit you when we come to Paris. You'll give us accomodations, yes?

Nanny Molly
Co-CEO NannyWorld Entertprises Internation

[misschrisc]

I love the MOMA. Thanks for sharing this. I feel like I got to got go with you. The Cardiff exhibit sounded wonderful!