Chihuly at the Botanical Garden

Dale Chihuly has an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden until October 29th. If you have a chance to make it up to the Bronx, I highly recommend it.



The Sun. If only the real sun had come out.



You can see how much it rained from the swollen Bronx River.



The Garden of Glass right about the Rose Garden.




The Botanicals Gardens are impressive in their own right, especially the roses.

But the real show was in the Conservatory.




The Amathyst Tower outside the entrance.



Inspired by the Japanese art of flower arranging.




More installations.



Can you guess which spears are inside and which are outside.

My favorite were the boats.




I took 102 pictures, maybe I'll post more tomorrow.

Team France: World Police

Last night, Stephen Colbert quipped "Ceci n'est pas un peace-keeping force" about France's failure to institute a peace-keeping force in Lebanon. Initially France pledged the bulk of the 15,000-strong force which along with the Lebanese army would: (a) eradicate Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, (b} create a lasting peace between Lebanon and Israel or (c) leave after several soldiers had been killed by Hizbullah/ Israel/ friendly fire and leave the Lebanese army to do what is wasn't able to do/ didn't want to do in the past twenty years. If you picked c, you are clearly not a member of the UN or the EU. In any event they have only contributed 2000 soldiers.

Magritte painted a picture of a pipe and labelled it Ceci n'est pas une pipe (this is not a pipe). Because in semiotic language, it is not a pipe, but a representation of a pipe.

In the same way that France has not created a peace-keeping force, so much as it has created a farce of a peace-keeping force. Farce, along with cheese-eating and surrender, is France's true talent.

Resignation

I've been bad. I haven't updated here in a month and a half. I forgot the password. I was thinking about abandoning this blog-thing altogether. I'd begun to feel anxious and frustrated. I thought I lost my voice, but really I just had nothing to say.
I had a job that was sucking my soul out. That's why I didn't write. "I feel numb. I go home at night and sit on the couch watching tv till I pass out." Day after day after day. That's sounds really depressing, but I wasn't suicidal or anything. I was just nothing. I just didn't give a shit about anything.
But yesterday, I quit. I got a new job, by what I can only describe as a stroke of luck and a sign of divine mercy. So I'm back.
Awesome things about my new (it's actually my internship from last semester, but now in job form) job:
I can wear jeans
I will not have to toil in a cubicle
I can take a lunch break
I like my coworkers and they like me (also they are not androids)
Half day fridays

It's a lot more interesting and I get to work on creative projects. I just have to suck it up and get through these next two weeks.

This has inspired me to download way to many songs. As much as I often disagree with Pitchfork (especially abou their disdain for Ryan Adams, but that's a whole other post) about current music, I agree almost whole heartedly with them about music from the past.