New York 2011: Day 2: Manhattan
Joel and Jessica both had to work, so I did the sensible thing and started my day when they did. Short version? 13 hour stretches as a tourist in Manhattan might be a bit much!
At least the LIRR (Long Island Railroad) is a smooth ride, and it was a nice walk from Penn Station up to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). Conveniently arrived there five minutes after they opened. Went through Carlito Carvalhosa's Sum of Days, which was very different and somewhat less etheral than I expected, then Harun Farocki's Images of War (at a Distance)... which seemed to do a good job expressing the technology and video game feel, although the pages and pages of text in the exhibit were a bit too dense.
Standard Deviations was pretty neat (literally-- on important fonts and typefaces), and Talk to Me (communication between people and objects art) was extremely cool, especially as a geography dork who does a lot of this stuff as research rather than as art. de Kooning had a large exhibit as did a few others.
Three hours was enough to run through all of that, plus a more brief look at most of the other exhibit. Hunger pangs then reminded me it was time to head down to the Village and meet up with Alex for a late lunch. Porchetta for amazing pork sandwiches (down to the crispy skin, nom!), and across the street to Luke's Lobster for equally amazing lobster rolls, which are something that's hard to find in Los Angeles. We were still hungry afterwards, so we wandered around the corner to South Brooklyn Pizza for a slice of fairly solid pizza.
Dessert was at Momofuku's Milk, for the cereal ice cream, which was good but less intense of a flavor than expected. Quite a comprehensive tour of food to fit into one meal-- thanks Alex!
We headed separate ways afterwards (my friends actually have lives, who knew!), as I ended up going through Union Square's Freshmarket (farmer's market) on my way to Adorama, where I spent abotu 50% more money than I planned. Whoops. Bummed around for a bit before closing the night at a very packed (due to beer week!) Rattle n Hum meeting with the Ars Technica geeks and wandering Koreatown before heading back. Quite a packed day!