An Expedition to Storm King

Storm King is a collection of outdoor sculptures over about 450 acres north of New York City about 60 miles. We took a bus from the New York Port Authority (which is another story in and of itself) that took this route:

I was lucky enough to have a nice new cap from Stetson:

It is hard to describe the setting of the art. It is in the Hudson River Valley, and very pretty. It would be fantastic to be there in the fall, when all the trees are turning colors.

There was a lot of art, and a lot of different types of art.

Fountains:

Columns

HUGE steel structures, some of which moved:

Stuff that looked like wet sand art:

More HUGE steel structures: 

Dry set stone walls. It doesn't look like much here, but just wait. (Doreen didn't want me to touch the wall. But it was a wall)

Landscape art. Forgive the motion. It is Land Waves by Maya Lin (the architech who did the Vietnam War Memorial) 

This is better:

You can see how the wall weaves amongst the trees here:

This is a three legged Buddha standing on his own head.

For scale:

I was enchanted by this piece:

that you could sit in. I was telling some kid outside that he had to pay $20 to get in. (he didn't)

This is a beetle:

More big art:

Here I am, recreating art:

I loved this piece as well. Mirrored Fence:

Cool!

I was holding up this piece for a while:

Doreen did it via levitation:

This piece was supposed to look like waving seaweed. It did.

Here we are, resting:

And finally, going home.

We were very tired when we got home.

It was a good trip.

An Expedition to New York City and Beyond

I had another Board meeting in Oslo last week, so we took a quick trip to New York City while I was on my way.

As usual, we had an uneventful airplane ride:

and has become our habit, we stayed in the London NYC, and even in the same room that we have stayed in for the past three or four trips (4505. Nice room, high enough for a nice view of Central Park)

 We had a VERY early flight (we took off at 6:30!!!) and landed about 11:30. Everything worked perfectly for us and we got to the hotel at 12:30.

We had lunch at the Bouchon Bakery. It was just delicious.

After that, we headed down to the Stetson headquarters. One of Doreen's fellow alumni is now their CEO:

It was a great visit! That company has quite a history. You think of them today as a cowboy hat company. And indeed, they make plenty of cowboy hats. But their history is much broader than that: 

Just a few labels from famous hats.

Some good looking fedoras

Some famous old hats

And then, of course, we had to walk through Times Square:

and I had a new Hat!

 That night we had a late dinner at Nougatine, and it was well worth it.

An Expedition to Alcatraz and Ai Wei Wei

We have never been to Alcatraz. It is not a place that was at the top of my list, but someplace that always seemed like it would be fun to visit.

But as a part of Doreen's convention, there was a tour of Alcatraz, which currently has the Chinese Artist Ai Wei Wei's exhibit installed.

We are big Ai Wei Wei fans, and this show was called Ai Wei Wei @ Large. It was a site specific installation that is ending later this month. SO if you want to go, you better go quick.

There were multiple pieces of the installation, starting with a huge Chinese kite:

The eyes look like the Twitter bird to me, and there were phrases written on some of the sections.

The second piece was my favorite, called "Trace", which was Lego portraits of various prisoners of conscience being held (or having been held) in jail for their views.

The curator told us the story about how she needed to know who was going to be represented, not to censor them (or so she hoped) but to make sure the National Park Service was prepared for any blowback that might occur. She found out that Snowden was going to be included about three days before the installation. To their credit, the National Park Service (and the State Department) did not object.

As we were leaving, Doreen had noticed that one of the Legos has been kicked out of place. She replaced it, thereby becoming part of the art.

The next piece was called "Refraction" and was a wing made up of solar cook stoves from Tibet. You couldn't get too close to this one, so it made less of an impact.

The most moving piece to me was called "Stay Tuned" which was set in Cell Block A. Cell Block A had not been open to the public prior to this show. Ai Wei Wei took various recordings, and played them in about a dozen cells. Each cell had a three legged stool where you could sit an listen. To the credit of the other viewers, it was easy to wait a minute or two (or not at all) and listen as long as you wanted. It was tremendous.

I don't have any photos of the next piece, called "Illumination". This one used the two "psychiatric observation cells" as music boxes, playing Hopi chants. Very intense, and more than a little disturbing.

The second to last was called "Blossom" which was a multi-layered installation. They were ceramic flowers placed in various toilets, sinks, and bathtubs. They represented the "Hundred Flowers" campaign that Mao waged in the 1950s. The plan was that Mao would let you pick up a flower, and say anything you wanted. But Mao was using this as a trick. He arrested the people who would say things against him or the Communist party.

The final piece was called "Yours Truly" which let you send post cards to the folks depicted in the second piece. We all wrote short notes.

Good show. More on Alcatraz later.

San Francisco, Tasty Salted Pig Parts

We're staying at the St Francis on Union Square.

It is a big hotel, but nice. They have those fancy elevators where you put your floor number in before you call the car. You have to put in your card key, and it sends you an elevator that goes right to your floor (and other guests if it is crowded) Pretty cool.

We like to walk around to shake off the flight effects (no yoga for us!) so we wandered down to the Ferry Building to get some Tasty Salted Pig Parts from Boccalone. Just a little cone of dried meats. Delicious.

 It is a beautiful day here, which makes us a little sad our first flight was canceled.

We didn't take the cable car back, but did walk past China Town

We're meeting some friends later for dinner. Right now, I think I will go and have a beer.

An Expedition to San Francisco

My Sweet Ever Lovin' has a convention in San Francisco, so I tagged along for the weekend.

We didn't have an auspicious start, though. Our Friday flight was cancelled (mechanical) and we had to re-book on Saturday. We lost a day in San Francisco.

But that is water under the bridge!

We got here about 2:00, delayed because Joe Biden is also in town.

But the flight was fine.

There is always something to see when flying cross country. At least there is if you get the window seat.

This guy and his wife sat right in front of us. They had some odd habits.

First, the didn't sit down until the plane was about to push back. Well, OK. They would be sitting for a while. They were both looking at the read of the plane, which means right in our direction.

He was reading a Michael Pollen book (Cooked?) and she was staring at her mobile phone.

Then, during the flight, he got up again, turned around, and started doing push-ups on his chair. After that, he stood in the aisle and did yoga.

I figure he is some crazy VC who just can't stand to fly commercial.

Food in Amsterdam

Yes, we ate well in Amsterdam.

Besides the delicious herring

and addictive Stroopwaffles

we ate at five outstanding restaurants that Doreen picked out and made reservations for before we arrived.

In order of appearance, these were:

Envy. Very close to our hotel, and a great tasting menu with wine accompaniment. Mostly local foods, including some great raw local oysters. Expensive, but worth it.

Taiko. In a fancy hotel. The chef was called the best in town by the person who ran our hotel. He came out to say hello to us, and find out who called him the best chef in town (which he denied. But if not the best, he was probably close to it). The pacing was little off here. The wine paring (Doreen got the sake pairing) sometime arrived after the food. But the food (Asian fusion) was great.

Blauw. Indonesian food. We had the rijstaffle:

As Mark Bittman says, the worst Indonesian food in Amsterdam is better than the best Indonesian food in the US. And this is a good, very good, one.

Ron Gastrobar. Wonderful food here. They sell almost everything for the same price, and we shared, but it was not as easy to share as one might hope. Great service. I asked about a wine, and was warned off of it and given a taste. Nice job - we ordered something else.

De Kas. For our last night. A real "farm to table" place, where they were also the farm. You don't get a choice, you get what they cook. The main course was a sous vide chicken that melted in your mouth. Great stuff.

We had good coffee, good cheese, and a wealth of food opportunities.

Go for the museums. Stay for the food.