Weekend!

Friday as the day where I didn’t go to work. What did I do instead? Among other things:

NYC Transit Museum – saw the collages exhibit: “Paper Passages” by Chris Pelletiere. Loved it! Vibrant demonstration of the vibrant life in the subway. Pelletiere’s inspiration from his childhood in Brooklyn and enthusiasm for the medium is quite inspiring. Definitely worth seeing – at the museum’s Brooklyn Heights branch until 9/3/07.

Brooklyn Historical Society – really cool. The building is a landmark; the collection was vibrant – a look at life in Brooklyn, since the pre-colonial days.

It rained off and on all afternoon, and I couldn’t get myself to line up with the tourists (most of them were obviously tourists) to go for Free Friday at MOMA. Instead, I went to the
International Center of Photography – cool. Made it for the voluntary contribution Friday (5pm to 8pm), and therefore got to see the current exhibits. “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits” was fascinating – some of which were likely rarely seen photos, others were fascinating portrayals of people that mainstream history had forgotten or neglected. The Amelia Earheart exhibit was also interesting, especially in the feeling of how celebrity in photography are sort of a 20th century invention – at least, in that fan sense of things. Both exhibits especially made me wonder – who’s in control – the photographer or the subject? Who wants to present what we the viewers see, and exactly what are we seeing? Earheart, the adventuress/aviatrix who somehow remained feminine (and yet gave off the whiff of adrogyny?); the African Americans who strove for equal rights and dignity – yet dealt with so much struggle.

Saturday:

APA alumni annual picnic. This year, it was up at Alma Mater’s campus. Regards to FC and P for doing such a great job with food. Kind of missed the smell of fresh bbq though. Maybe that’s just me. But, can’t neglect seeing the good work of the campus people for cleaning up after us. The annual tug of war: FC’s school beat mine; then again, the losers of each round of tugging later complained that the slope of the grand gave advantage to the winner. Umm, yeah, Alma Mater’s on a hill. What do you expect? Well, perhaps if the tugging had proceeded at another angle (perpendicular to the slop, rather than on it), the results could have been different. Who’s to say? At least we had perfect weather!

Brother insisted on making a late night excursion to see “The Bourne Ultimatum” at Sheepshead Bay UA. Turned out to be an excellent idea. Major thumbs up – awesome movie! Paul Greengrass, director, has quite an eye and made for some dizzy scenes. Plus, one wonders if he really had the mindboggling plots in mind, or that it just lucked out for him. Matt Damon – well, he’s The Man as Bourne. Not a perfect man, but a man in mourning, in determination, and in search of redemption. This rounds out a fantastic trilogy – and was probably the best of the sequels of this summer. (ok, conceding that of the many third sequels of this summer (plus Die Hard as a fourth movie of a series), I’ve only seen three – Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek and Bourne, perhaps I shouldn’t be so sure of determining Bourne Ultimatum as the best – for all I care, Spider-man 3 was the best of the trilogy movies – still, I really liked the Bourne one).

Take the Scooby test – is the crime presented real, or one ripped from a Scooby Doo episode. I did pretty well, if only because I remembered one or two episodes and recognized at least one of the crimes as a real one that I remembered reading from way back.