Trip to NYC

I wasn't around for a bit - as you can tell I was overloading. Thus it was time to head down to the city. So Friday we packed our bags and headed down to NYC.

Highlights from the trip:

Although I thought that it was fading, the gallery scene in Chelsea was alive and well. On Saturday we not only gallery hopped, but attended 3 vernisages, all in the 22nd street area. A highlight of our outing was Boyd Webb's surrealistic photos of people trapped in a carpeted sea. Other notable exhibits are Wayne Atkins at the Taxter & Spengemann, and Darren Almond's large "digital" clock.

We didn't go out to many restaurants, but we did have dinner at Casa, a Brazilian place in the village (the moqueca was fantastic), and Cafe D'Alsace for brunch on Sunday (the choucroute garnie was excellent).

Sunday night we were invited to David Sulzer's place. He is not only a professor of Neuroscience at Columbia University but a composer and musician (where he is known as David Soldier. One of David's recent (artistic) projects was working with an elephant orchestra in northern Thailand. These are the same elephants that paint (and I was told play soccer, although they don't really understand the rules). Their instruments include custom made vibraphones, gongs, drums and harmonicas. Over wine, port, champagne, muscatel and (my memory gets fuzzy at this point) ... we listened to David's newest recording that consisted of a Buddhist monk singing while being backed up by the elephants. Towards the end of the performance the elephants have a solo that climaxes with a chorus of elephant purring, yawning and trumpeting. What is truly amazing is that the animals can keep a rhythm, "sing" on the down beat, and their collective playing gets more and more intense over the course of the improvised song. This newest recording will be out sometime in the near future. For info on older recordings, click here.

For a better idea on what a musical elephant looks like, watch this: