Cultural exploits
Nov. 27th, 2013 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
riontelI am on vacation right now (it was either that or flying to/from Boston during Thanksgiving week, which was out of the question) so today I decided to tear myself away from the favorite spot on the couch and work on some cultural enrichment. Visited Frick Collection for the first time. Their special exhibition right now is "Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis". There are fifteen paintings all together on loan from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, with Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" given pride of place in its own room. It's pretty, tiny and there probably wouldn't be all this hype about it if not for Scarlett Johansson. The rest of the paintings are crammed together in another room. The exhibition is small but nice, if you like Dutch painters. It's not that much different from Frick's permanent collection, which has its own three Vermeers (or, at least, that's how many I was able to identify), some Rembrandts and other stuff as well. I am not big on portraits, which dominate the collection. Their Turners were pretty nice and I really liked the clocks. Surprisingly, at 2pm on a cold and rainy Tuesday there was an actual line to get into the museum and it wasn't all made up of tourists either.
After two hours of culture, I detoured into the shopping mecca of Madison Avenue. Not my usual haunts by any stretch, but N.'s stepmom requested a Mulberry bag (that's like Burberry but fancier, in case you were wondering) so there I went. It was sort of cool to walk into the store, point at a seemingly random purse and tell the sales person "I'll take that", without inquiring about the price, trying it on, etc. Sure, I buy exorbitantly priced accessories every day, nothing special here. All the bags I've ever owned in my entire life, including luggage probably don't add up to this one ugly purse.
To finish off the day on the right note, I rendezvoused with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_lazy_legend at the Cort Theater for recently opened "Waiting for Godot" featuring Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen as Estragon or Professor Xavier and Magneto in "Waiting for Godot" as Lena called it. Since I didn't get tickets ahead of time we ended up with really cheap standing room "seats", which in retrospect wasn't very smart of me, I have a tendency to pass out if I stand too long. So somewhere in the middle of first act I quietly migrated to the steps, which turned out to be more comfortable than the usual theater seats, since you can stretch your legs. Given that we were mezzanine center, the unobstructed view was great too. Play was excellent, both McKellen and Stewart were awesome, and the production was very well done, though I suspect some slight reinterpretation of original Beckett. I enjoyed it tremendously. The play is running until March 2nd and I highly recommend it. I am thinking of seeing "No Man's Land" with the same cast as well, if I get a chance.
After two hours of culture, I detoured into the shopping mecca of Madison Avenue. Not my usual haunts by any stretch, but N.'s stepmom requested a Mulberry bag (that's like Burberry but fancier, in case you were wondering) so there I went. It was sort of cool to walk into the store, point at a seemingly random purse and tell the sales person "I'll take that", without inquiring about the price, trying it on, etc. Sure, I buy exorbitantly priced accessories every day, nothing special here. All the bags I've ever owned in my entire life, including luggage probably don't add up to this one ugly purse.
To finish off the day on the right note, I rendezvoused with
a_lazy_legend at the Cort Theater for recently opened "Waiting for Godot" featuring Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen as Estragon or Professor Xavier and Magneto in "Waiting for Godot" as Lena called it. Since I didn't get tickets ahead of time we ended up with really cheap standing room "seats", which in retrospect wasn't very smart of me, I have a tendency to pass out if I stand too long. So somewhere in the middle of first act I quietly migrated to the steps, which turned out to be more comfortable than the usual theater seats, since you can stretch your legs. Given that we were mezzanine center, the unobstructed view was great too. Play was excellent, both McKellen and Stewart were awesome, and the production was very well done, though I suspect some slight reinterpretation of original Beckett. I enjoyed it tremendously. The play is running until March 2nd and I highly recommend it. I am thinking of seeing "No Man's Land" with the same cast as well, if I get a chance.
