magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

seven-thirty bus. had to get up a bit before six to shower and eat breakfast and make sure i got to the bus station early enough. and i can never really sleep on busses and planes and such. more to do with the cramped, upright body position than the sense of movement, i think.

subway over to the whitney, where i met up with the rest of my section. some nice stuff (edward steichen's early photos were particularly nice, through various chemical printing processes he made them look like paintings or dreams but certainly not photos) and a lot of not all that terribly interesting stuff (the permanent collection didn't do much for me).

to soho, quick stops at the earth room and broken kilometer, both long-term installations by walter de maria.

out to redhook, brooklyn and our first view of the site. redhook is pretty desolate. the highway cut it off from the rest of brooklyn, and it's never really recovered. there's no subway stations, very few bus routes, and lots of empty housing. it seems that most of the local residents live in the projects (although as projects go, they're well-kept and almost inviting). i don't really understand why it's not developed though. it's really quite nice, and if you make yr way out to the water (or up above the average factory/warehouse height, i suppose) there's great views of manhattan and the statue of liberty.

took the subway back into manhattan. no real idea of where i was going except that was hungry. got off at a random stop with nick and justin. looked around, and we were half a block from a thai restaurant.

after dinner, i debated whether or not i should try to find the bowery ballroom and see if there were tickets to the ida and low show, or whether i should head back out to brooklyn and find graeme (he was out at a friend's house for a world series party).

opted for brooklyn. graeme says (after hellos and all that) "there was another show that i was interested in, broadcast, but it was sold out."

"actually, " i say, "that was the same show." i guess it was a good thing i didn't spend a couple hours wandering around manhattan looking for the bowery ballroom.

we hung out at the party for a bit, but graeme's not really any more into baseball than i am, and his girlfriend, eloise, is even less so, plus she's french and doesn't undertand any of the rules, so we headed out after a while.

went to a bar called gallapogos, that has a large open space that you walk along on the way in that's sunken and filled with water. there are internally lit sculptures that hang from the ceiling and reflect in the water. the bar itself is only about twice the size of the pool, and has candles on the walls, and is very cozy.

we met up with some friends of their's from france who had brought their own beer to the bar. when they finished a glass one of them would duck down under the table and fill it back up. it was pretty funny. and lots of conversation in french, which was a little surreal (as if everything else wasn't).

we left for another bar, but stopped first along the water, and the most amazing view of the manhattan skyline that i've ever seen. from what's basically just an overgrown, empty lot. although apparently it is slated to become a park. that's nice.

a couple of drinks at the other bar. and as we were thinking about leaving, eloise notice that her bag was missing. the people behind the bar had seen two men run out the door and around the corner just prior to this, so we followed in that direction and found her bag next to a dumpster, the contents dumped out, and the only thing missing was her glasses. it could have been worse, but that still sucks.

earlier in the day, at lunch, sunny's camera was stolen under the same circumstances. and they were both replaceable things, but afterwards both sunny and eloise had a look in their eye, a look that looked the way i felt when my car was broken into. it's too bad that stuff like that happens.

and so back to graeme's apartment. it was nice hanging out with him. back in the li days i kinda wished that i had gotten to know him better. and it would have been nice to spend more time actually hanging out instead of working, but maybe next time.