The pix are wonderful! - Nona, Sun, 12 Feb 2006 8:38PM
Thanks for sharing the pics and the stories. I'm so delighted that you had a great time! Definitely some wonderful art the MMA. Gordon is as handsome as ever :D - Ellen, Sun, 12 Feb 2006 3:24PM
I miss the big city. Bad. Sounds like you had a FABOO time! Glad you took the plunge! M - Meg, Sun, 12 Feb 2006 10:33AM
1 Grand Central StationEdit The roof had the constellations with wee little lights in the brightest stars. This is the least blurry picture I was able to get. I must've been a spaz, because a lot of my pictures turned out blurry.Edit
2 Grand Central StationEdit There it is, the big main room, featured in a zillion movies...Edit
3 Gordon in the subwayEdit My wonderful host, Gordon. He was mildly irked about something, so I told him to make his best 'crabby face' while I took a picture of the '42' behind him.Edit
4 Gordon on the subwayEdit This is a more typical view of Gordon. Note the lady with the thought balloon over her head that says "pff... tourists!"Edit
5 Subway signEdit I told Gordon the middle one meant "no D&D" since he has 3d6. A joke only dorks like us could love.Edit
6 AMNH- planetsEdit Our first stop- the planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. The arc at the top is the outside of the planetarium itself; if it were the size of the Sun, these planets would be to scale.Edit
7 AMNH- planetsEdit Looking out of the planetarium- the glass was held to the frame by little clamps and rubber bands.Edit
8 AMNH- inner planetsEdit Earth was a little bigger than a softball.Edit
9 AMNH- PlutoEdit I always take a picture of Pluto when I run across a model of the solar system. But this fancy New York museum didn't think Pluto deserved to be numbered among the planets. Jerks!Edit
10 AMNH- dinosaurEdit Gordon's there under it's head.Edit
11 AMNH- azurite-malachiteEdit A big pretty hunk o' rock.Edit
12 AMNH- topazEdit Amother big pretty hunk o' rock.Edit
13 AMNH- amethystEdit Yet another big pretty hunk o' rock.Edit
14 AMNH- Mayan basinEdit A carved creature with *gasp* genitals! Gordon looks on in wide-eyed wonder.Edit
15 Stacy in the big cityEdit My first night. Behind me is the Chrysler building, which I didn't visit. This is not the most flattering angle. But look at my cute hat made out of a zillion wood-chippered silk saris!Edit
16 St.Pat's- MaryEdit Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Not the biggest in the city, but the one that was within walking distance of our hotel. This was the biggest and most well-attended shrine, that of the Holy Virgin of the Labia.Edit
17 St.Pat's looking upEdit Everything was intricately decorated.Edit
18 St.Pat's- floor decorationEdit Note the coat sleeve. Oops. I thought this was a pretty little design.Edit
19 St.Pat'sEdit Looking down one end. Carvings and gilding and art and crap were everyhere!Edit
20 St.Pat's- Saint BrigitEdit St.Brigit! You can light a candle to her for $2. I chose to make my donation at 'the poor of the world' box instead. There was a donation box about every 10 feet, it seemed.Edit
22 St.Pat'sEdit From outside- not well-lit, obviously- but you get an idea of how monstrous this building is.Edit
23 Rockefeller plazaEdit Another favorite place for scenes in movies. That's Prometheus, if you didn't already know.Edit
24 Rockefeller plazaEdit Skaters! It was plenty cold and windy that evening.Edit
25 Rockefeller plazaEdit There were flags all around the rink. We figured out they were in alphabetical order. This made it easy for Gordon to find his favorite flag, Libya's, which is just a plain green field.Edit
26 Rockefeller plazaEdit If you turn 180 degrees from the view of the rink, you'll see these three fountains. Every one has a mer-person on a creature (a fish, a dolphin, and a shark).Edit
27 Gordon and steaming thingEdit The best explanation we could come up with was that it was a thing to make it so that pedestrians aren't walking through a bunch of steam, but who knows.Edit
28 IntrepidEdit A big battleship. I didn't visit it, but it was next to the place that did the boat tours.Edit
29 Cruise boatEdit Here's the boat I rode in. It was a three hour tour (a three hour tour!) and went all the way around Manhattan island, with a detour to swing by the Statue of Liberty.Edit
30 Fancy apartmentsEdit Martha Stewart and Calvin Klein have apartments in those buildings. They cost $4 million each. The apartments, not the buildings.Edit
31 Ground zeroEdit That spot where there's nothing, that's where the World Trade Centers used to be.Edit
32 Statue of LibertyEdit Here's the approach. You're getting about a third of the pictures of the Statue that I took. I was standing on the deck to take them, and it was extreeeeemely cold and windy so I had to take lots of pictures to justify freezing my ass off.Edit
35 Statue of LibertyEdit Face on, but still in shadow...Edit
36 Statue of LibertyEdit Sunlight! It was a picture-perfect (or close to perfect) moment; it unclouded right as we made our closest approach.Edit
37 Statue of LibertyEdit A little more sunlight on the Lady.Edit
38 Manhattan islandEdit This is the view directly behind us, of the tip of Manhattan island.Edit
39 Statue of LibertyEdit As we headed back to circle the island, I took one last look at Lady Liberty before I headed back in and had a truly awful giant pretzel.Edit
40 Stacy on the boatEdit After my awful giant pretzel, I went out on deck again to gawk some more, and convinced a friendly British fellow to take my picture. I'm not wearing my hat because it would've blown off into the water. I was wondering if I was going to regret layering so many clothes on, and I was really glad I did here.Edit
41 Brooklyn BridgeEdit It's the famous Brooklyn Bridge! Apparently walking across it is something people do so they can brag about how they walked across it.Edit
42 Manhattan BridgeEdit It's the somewhat less famous Manhattan Bridge! It was all pretty and blue.Edit
43 Stacy's shadowEdit Pretty self-explanatory... "Hi, everyone! I'm in Manhattan!!!"Edit
44 Yankee StadiumEdit I don't give a rip about sports, but Yankee Stadium deserves at least one picture...Edit
45 Canadian geeseEdit Columbia University owns a substantial chunk of Manhattan Island, and they've left a lot of it in it's natural state. It's odd to look at this and think it's on such an otherwise heavily-populated island.Edit
46 Columbia's natureEdit Here's a little cove where they practice that sport with the long skinny boats.Edit
47 Bridge thingEdit This is a neat feature; rather than the bridge lifting up to let boats pass, a chunk out of the middle rotates sideways. Then after we passed, it rotates back in place.Edit
48 God loves NYEdit Sunlight shining through the clouds on the fair city...Edit
49 Little red lighthouseEdit That wee little lighthouse used to be alone there, then when the bridge was built they were going to tear it down. Some lady wrote a children's book about it, and it got popular enough from the book that they decided to keep it.Edit
50 RocketsEdit Some years ago, the Powers That Be decided that any building over 4 stories had to have a water tank on top in case of a fire. Buildings now have them under the roof, but back then you had them out in the open as seen here. Russians took pictures of it and told their people "Look at all the rockets the Americans have aimed at us!" in order to scare them into spending more on the military.Edit
51 BusEdit This is the bus I took back 'home' after the boat ride. It's shiny and clean. I liked the buses better than the subway since I could see where I was going, so I took those most often.Edit
52 Colbert ReportEdit Since the Daily Show got cancelled for the day I had tickets (Jon Stewart's wife had a baby), I tried to whine my way in to a taping of the Colbert Report. No luck, but here's their studio anyway.Edit
53 Empire State Building entranceEdit That night, Gordon said "hey, let's walk to the Empire State Building!" so we did.Edit
54 ESB viewEdit After finally figuring out the settings on my camera I was able to get some good shots of the view. You think I'd'a worked on that before this moment, but eh. It was so windy up there, half the deck was closed. Brisk!Edit
55 ESB viewEdit The brighter area to the left is Broadway. That street had so much blinky flashy shit it was almost overwhelming.Edit
56 ESB looking upEdit The round white light near the center there is the Moon. For an additional $30 we could have gotten up to a higher observation deck, but we were plenty high as it was.Edit
57 ESB signEdit This guard tried really hard to convince me that the neon sign behind him was the one they used for the opening theme of 'Frasier', which featured a Seattle skyline. I couldn't tell if he was serious (and wrong) or pulling my leg.Edit
58 GodfatherEdit I was exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel, so Gordon bought me a nightcap. After chatting with the waiter, he suggested I try this drink: part scotch and part Amaretto. It's my new favorite drink!Edit
59 Hotel front desk clockEdit This clock is about 5 feet across. The shot is from my seat at the bar.Edit
60 Metropolitan Museum of ArtEdit The next morning I headed to the Met. I was so eager to get there, I didn't eat breakfast before I left.Edit
61 MMA and breakfastEdit So I bought breakfast- a sausage dog from a cart! Oh, and the Met.Edit
62 MMA and refreshing waterEdit The brand name for the water was 'Poland Springs', after a river in Maine. Oh, and the Met.Edit
63 MMA- Egyptian lionEdit I walked in near the Egyptian wing, which was fortunate since that was my favorite! Here is a big-ass lion right at the entrance to the wing.Edit
64 MMA Egyptian cubEdit This little lion cub was carved before written history; it's one of the oldest Egyptian artifacts in the collection.Edit
65 MMA Egyptian plaqueEdit Those wacky Egyptians loved their falcons.Edit
66 MMA Egyptian sphinx (Hatshepsut)Edit Hatshepsut was a queen who decided that she was going to be pharaoh, screw the idea that only a guy can be pharaoh. So she had herself depicted as a man with a beard (well, and a lion body here, but they did that) though you can still see that she had delicate features.Edit
67 MMA Egyptian sphinx (Hatshepsut)Edit The details of the lion's body are fascinating.Edit
68 MMA HatshepsutEdit This is one of the very few depictions of her as a woman with the pharoah headdress. There's another one behind it, but like many statues of her it was busted up by her successor.Edit
69 MMA Egyptian scarabsEdit Here is an assload of scarabs and other little amulets. Most of them were a little smaller than a dime.Edit
70 MMA HathorEdit The cow goddess of love and fertility...Edit
71 MMA Egyptian scorpionEdit One of the few depictions of a scorpion I was able to find.Edit
72 MMA Egyptian vaseEdit This pretty little vase is about 4 inches tall.Edit
73 MMA Egyptian trinketsEdit More amulets- and the molds they used to mass-produce them.Edit
74 MMA AmunEdit There was something about the way this head was formed that caught my attention. Perhaps the timeless stare. Yeah, he has no nose, but that was common. If you wanted to deface statues your predecessor had made but were lazy, you just busted off the nose. Or sometimes they broke off just because they stick out more.Edit
75 MMA AkhenatenEdit The famous monotheist offers a duck to Aten the Sun god. In return, Aten blesses him with life, symbolised by a ray of light holding a little ankh before the pharaoh.Edit
76 MMA Egyptian temple moatEdit There was an entire temple in a huge room at the Met- it even had a moat around it with a crocodile guardian.Edit
77 MMA Egyptian templeEdit This is the entrance to the temple. The windows to the right looked out on Central Park.Edit
79 MMA SekhmetsEdit 4 statues of the lioness goddess were seated outside the temple. She was mean and ate everyone until another god tricked her into drinking a bunch of beer- then she turned into the cow goddess of love seen earlier.Edit
81 MMA BesEdit Bes is a bearded dwarf who protected children and women in childbirth. He is one of the few Egyptian characters drawn face-on.Edit
82 MMA BennuEdit This is an Egyptian phoenix from the Book of the Dead. There is one section of the Book where you say a spell and become a phoenix in the afterlife.Edit
83 MMA BennuEdit Another phoenix riding on the barge that carries the Sun across the sky every day.Edit
84 MMA BennuEdit A finely detailed phoenix with a falcon and a lion.Edit
85 MMA Egyptian kittyEdit If you look closely, you can see the reflection of my camera in the cat's shoulder. This statue was about life-size.Edit
86 MMA SekhmetEdit Another goddess seated outside a special exhibit of the magic and medicine of ancient Egypt (where no photos were allowed).Edit
87 MMA Greek wreathEdit A golden wreath of oak leaves and acorns.Edit
88 MMA Greek vaseEdit This vase has a satyr head on one side and a nymph head on the other.Edit
89 MMA Oedipus and the SphinxEdit I was amazed at how many paintings they had that I recognized.Edit
90 MMA Pygmalion and GalateaEdit I was also pleased that as long as I had my flash off, they didn't mind me taking pictures of them all.Edit
91 MMA ThinkerEdit This was a 'test run', it was maybe a foot and a half tall, unlike the original which is in some other museum, and is huge.Edit
92 MMA that paintingEdit I forget the name of this one, but I've seen it on plenty of nightlights and other glurgy reproductions.
93 MMA IrisesEdit This is a companion to the other iris painting that's at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam... he was trying for two different effects. This is the calm one, and the other one has brighter colors and is almost garish in comparison.Edit
94 MMA EchoEdit I wish this one didn't turn out so blurry... she is the woman who pissed off (I think) Hera, who made it so she could only repeat what other people said. She eventually faded away until only her voice was left.Edit
95 MMA WaterliliesEdit ...subject of a million impressionist calendars.Edit
96 MMA Modern artEdit This was the only piece in the modern art section that did anything for me. I wasn't digging the splatters and 8 foot orange canvasses. Call me old fashioned.Edit
97 MMA WaterEdit There was a statue section, including a set of 4 elementals.Edit
98 MMA EarthEdit The little cherub is holding a few sheafs of wheat.Edit
99 MMA FireEdit The little guy holds up a torch. The heads below were an art appreciation class- everyone was circled around a statue and they were all drawing it in big sketch books.Edit
100 MMA AirEdit The little cherub here holds a flute.Edit
101 MMA Psyche and ErosEdit X marks the spot...Edit
102 MMA Satyr and nymphEdit I loved this little statue of a chubby nymph pouring wine for a cheerful satyr.Edit
103 Daily Show bannerEdit I visited the studio on Tuesday, hoping that they would let me in if I gave them the sob story of coming all the way from Austin to see the Monday taping that had been cancelled.Edit
104 Daily Show bannerEdit This kind of crappy old apartment building is where they make the show.Edit
105 Daily Show studioEdit As you can guess, I got in! Not by my whining alone- the guard was not giving me any love, but someone in line overheard me, and she had a spare ticket so she gave it to me!Edit
106 Daily Show studioEdit The set was surprisingly small. The area where the desk and cameras are is about as big as my living room.Edit
107 Daily Show studioEdit You can see Jon in this one. After the warm-up guy got us all stoked, he came out and chatted and told a few jokes before the taping started.Edit
108 Daily Show studioEdit I was not supposed to be taking pictures, which explains the quality- but I had to sneak a few! I waited until commercial breaks though.Edit
109 Daily Show studioEdit The screens behind him doubled as green screens, so when he did inerviews with reporters "in the field" they'd stand in front of these green screens and be out in Iraq, doing the 'This Week in God' segments, or what-have-you.Edit
110 Daily Show studioEdit This is probably the best shot of the bunch. There were maybe 25 people in my section of audience to Jon's left.Edit
111 Daily Show studioEdit Another commercial break... the camera guys would come up to Jon and they would exchange cryptic information...Edit
112 Daily Show studioEdit I asked the nice lady who gave me a ticket (and who shoots videos) what the big round thing over Jon's head was. She wasn't sure, but thought it either reflected some light onto the set, or just looked cool.Edit
113 Gordon at the hotelEdit Here's the hotel room. It was actually two rooms; one bedroom with it's own bath, and the 'living room' with a fold-out couch and it's own bath. I slept on the fold-out couch.Edit
114 Hotel roomEdit Here's the living room, strewn with all my stuff.Edit
115 The RadissonEdit This is the outside of our hotel. The main entrance was around the corner, but this was the one we usually left by, since the deli was right across the street (where I'm standing).Edit
116 The RadissonEdit Looking up- there was a lot of intricate detals carved into the front of the first couple of stories, then it turned into typical verticle ice-cube tray.Edit
117 Chrysler buildingEdit The last day I was there I took a stroll around the city...Edit
118 Fine Food EateryEdit I thought at least one of those words was redundant. It amused me for some reason.Edit
119 BroadwayEdit The Color Purple... the musical? Also down the street is the Late Night show studio.Edit
120 BroadwayEdit There were huge ads plastered everywhere, some several stories tall.Edit
121 BroadwayEdit This building was covered with video screens, and the pictures were constantly moving and changing.Edit
122 Sprinkler signEdit Most of the buildings had these little plaques describing the location and/or configuration of their sprinkler systems. New Yorkers seem awfully worried about fire- but when you think about it, with good reason since everything's so close together.Edit
123 Kabbalah CenterEdit You could buy red strings *and* Kabbalah water here! This was just a block from our hotel.Edit
124 Soup and beerEdit My last picture, of my last meal in New York. Note how expensive beer is. Gordon bought all my dinners. For that, for the chance to crash in the hotel room, for the whole trip- I owe him big. I had a great time!Edit
