Winter Break

Well, even though it was back to work after the New Year, for me, this has continued to feel like something of a break. Graduate school classes do not resume until the end of January and so I am loving the amount of free time that I feel like I have all of a sudden. My weekends are my own and my weeks are not consumed by the graduate school paper writing/reading and the work related task tango. It is a much needed break!

I have been taking this time to enjoy my amazing city and have done some really great things over the past couple of weeks. I think that my favorite outing was last Saturday when M and I went to Ann Hamilton's "Event of a Thread." I had to laugh because sometimes there are moments that reflect those only-in-New York City kind of experiences and I felt like this was one of them. It seemed like everyone from friends to people I follow on Instagram headed to this art exhibit last weekend. We waited in a two hour line to get in--it was so long that it looped around an entire city block. As we marked our movement forward by acknowledging when we rounded another corner, we laughed at the garbage cans on each corner filled to the brim with empty Starbucks cups--coffees consumed in effort to keep warm as people waited. Again, only New Yorkers on line for an art exhibit could generate that much post-consumer coffee cup waste.

The exhibit was well worth the wait. First of all, the building the exhibit was housed in was beautiful and a stunning visual feast in and of itself, but beyond that, the interactive display was both fun and thought-provoking. Bathed in alternating squares of light and darkness, the exhibit was filled with giant swings that were rigged to pulleys. As people pumped their legs back and forth to swing on the giant swings, the pulleys moved a giant white curtain that hung in the middle of the huge room. This was in addition to various other theatrical elements; carrier pigeons, people dressed in military gear, and an opera singer who made her appearance at the close of the night.

All of the cool commentary on war and the loss of of innocence aside, this exhibit was just so much fun. I realize that the art purists out there would probably disagree, but I think that there is nothing better than interactive art exhibits!