Yellow meets yellow

I don’t know what happened. One day I was fine, the next, I was totally obsessed with yellow. Did it sneak up on me? I have no idea… All I know is that all around me that color is being used in fantastic, lust inducing ways.

Here are just a couple:

Nixon’s latest Rubber Player

Selk Bag 1, Selk Bag Sleepwear System (As seen in Moon)

Judy Blue skinny jeans

Agent Provocateur’s Yellow lingerie

I need to remember to keep on the lookout for more yellow…

Crazy clouds over Manhattan

Last Friday, while having some dinner at Mexican Radio (after missing a Michael Jackson tribute in Times Square), I and 8 million or so New Yorkers were treated to some amazing cloud formations and lighting as the sun set on a crazy week in general.

Luckily, I had my camera with me and was able to grab a few decent shots to remember just how weird everything looked. I’ve posted them on my Flickr account and Gothamist even posted one in their gallery about the mammatus clouds.

And additionally, you could download the Crazy Clouds Over Manhattan image as a desktop wallpaper over at MyBestDesktops.com.

I should remember to carry my camera with me as much as I can.

Update: In a roundabout way one of the photos I took of the clouds made its way onto CNN via a video report that featured  Gothamist which had a thumbnail of the shot. It’s tiny and only there for a second, but it’s there:

Francis Bacon, Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953

Despite feeling some need to create paintings, I’m not much of an art person. I’m not much for movements, education, following the stories behind pieces, marveling at hidden significances, or even remembering artists’ names… except for a couple artists who I’ve strongly connected to for often random or bizarre reasons.

Francis Bacon is one of those artists. His early surviving work is truly an amazing expression of a young man with some serious issues; issues that  I, as a young man when I was first exposed to him, felt some empathy with.

So it was with a special sense of awe that I slowly made my way through the retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday. Seeing those pieces “in the flesh” was one of the more inspirational moments I’ve had in a long time.

I really should remember to at least try to go see more art… and to turn that inspiration into actual done pieces.

So, this is a historic day. I just want to remember it…

Despite still not seeing very well, I checked out Moon the other day… Appropriately alone. It’s so refreshing to see smart science fiction on the big screen and Moon was just that. So smart, in fact, that it treated something that would have been the whole reveal of any other movie so matter-of-factly that you just knew the filmmakers didn’t think you were an idiot and that this was your first time in a movie theater.

It’s nice to be treated like you have a brain by movies now and again.

That said, somehow it manages to get an unfortunate Hollywood ending via some totally unnecessary audio that destroys any individual interpretation with specifics.

I need to remember to check out more smart films… $9.99 next?

Not exactly my procedure

I’ve had terrible vision for as long as I can remember. Yeah, I was the kid with the big bottle bottom glasses that were constantly breaking and therefore requiring various temporary methods of repair including the iconic white tape. Where did this white tape come from? I don’t remember…

Anyway, as a grown up (I use that term loosely), I’ve acquired an interest in things not compatible with extremely poor eyesight: swimming, motorcycles, and adventure travel to name a few. Sooner or later, I had to take action. It was actually while watching an episode of Lost when some castaways had to swim with their eyes open into a river to find a cave where they hoped to procure a nuclear device that I turned to my woman and said, “I can’t do that.”

The next day, I was at TLC uptown discussing my options. I opted for LASIK, but had to put surgery on hold until I ran that half-marathon. Once that was out of the way, it was two weeks solely wearing glasses only to find out at my last pre-op eye exam that my eyes are a slight bit screwed up… just enough to make my doctor not want to risk LASIK.

I felt terrible… but opted for PRK instead. Same thing, but with a longer recovery and some promise of discomfort/pain. (That said, since this was the only U.S. military approved treatment up until just recently, I’ve taken to calling my eyes “military grade”.)

It’s 2 days later and I’m writing this without contacts or glasses. My eye exam on Friday showed my at around 20/40… and it should only get better over the course of the coming weeks! No pain (yet?)… just dryness and a slight sensitivity to light.

I need to remember to do something worthwhile with these new eyes of mine!

So, I finally managed to catch Pixar’s latest masterpiece: Up. I have to admit, I’m amazed  they can continually produce imaginative, risky films that only keep getting better and better.

That said, this was probably one of the most depressing movies I’ve ever seen. Anyone who spends the time weighing the issues presented during the hour and forty minutes of animation would have to admit that meditating on a life wasted, on the worth of companionship, on the way we painfully attach emotions to inanimate objects, on the destruction of dreams, on the harsh realities surrounding our heroes and on the disintegration of the American family… is some seriously heavy stuff.

I need to remember to look out for Pixar’s next (which should prove more upbeat) Toy Story 3.

Lykke Li at a different performance

Thanks again to my woman, I had the pleasure of attending the Lykke Li concert last night at the Highline Ballroom. Ever since a friend put me on to her and I put her on to my woman, Lykke Li has been on heavy rotation, so I was excited for a surprise concert and she certainly didn’t disappoint.

Similarly to the first time we saw Sia at Hiro, Lykke Li live is very different from her recorded sound. On stage she’s overflowing with energy, attitude and a general bombast that brought a harder edge to some of the softer songs and a rocking danceability to the whole show. I had mentioned to the women before the show, that my favorite tracks on the album were the remixes (especially the ones by CSS and The Black Kids), so having the whole show have that feel was excellent.

Anyway, I should remember to be on the lookout for new Lykky Li stuff and see her live again!

(photo by serhio)

Cheering station for the American Cancer Society on the boardwaylk

In what could be misconstrued as a cruel drive to see her man break under pressure, my woman signed me up for yet another running race. Although this race was only 3 miles more than the previous one she’d signed me up for, those 3 miles plus the word “marathon” in the title had me dreading this challenge up to the second I found myself in a mass of over 11,000 runners and the starting horn blew.

That said,  a big chunk of the course was on my home turf, so 1.5 times around Prospect Park was no big deal. A nice bonus was running with my woman and her friend which made it feel more casual. Then it was off to Ocean Parkway for the last half of the race and that’s a pretty straight shot with an easy grade. The final bit on the actual Coney Island boardwalk was a little rough with runners tripping and falling all around me on the uneven wooden deck, but somehow I managed.

In the end, NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix Presented by Continental Airlines: Brooklyn was a tough challenge and a great experience. My official time: 2:05.

I should remember to keep running as it usually makes me feel great.

(photo by: mason13a)

Miami Beach Umbrellas

Hit South Florida for a long weekend for the first time in about 4 years. Stayed at the Delano, spent some quality time on the beach and basically enjoyed myself more than I expected to… without even visiting Exxotica which was also going on last weekend!

I should remember to keep South Beach on the list of possible long-weekend recharge destinations.

(BTW, download the image of Miami Beach Umbrellas from MyBestDesktops.com)