2010 New York Pillow Fight Day in Union Square

Today, Union Square Park turned into a sea of mostly white pillows for the International Pillow Fight Day. This is an annual event in many cities around the world as part of a non-commercial public event conceived by  NEWMINDSPACE and URBAN PLAYGROUND MOVEMENT. One of the goals is to make these unique events in public spaces become part of a popular culture, in an effort to replace passive, non-social, branded consumption experiences. Newmindspace is interactive public art, creative cultural interventions and urban bliss dissemination based in New York and Toronto. Most of the photos were captured from Filene's Basement.

Video from DJgileyni

The iPad Has Arrived

These are some of the images that I made earlier this morning at the Apple Fifth Avenue Flagship Store when the much anticipated "it" gadget, the iPad hit the stores at 9:00 AM. There was a countdown fit for New Year's Eve before eager customers were welcomed to get in by the staffers in blue. Many of the customers flew in from different parts of the globe to get their sleek tablet computer. The iPad is a lightweight, portable computer that can be used to watch video, listen to music, play games, write emails, surf the web or read electronic books on the 9.7-inch (24.6-centimetre) glass multitouchscreen device. The iPad also runs most of the 150,000 applications made for the iPod music player and the iPhone. 

Video from CBS News

Mohandas Gandhi Sculpture in Union Square Park

This bronze sculpture depicting Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) was sculpted by Kantilal B. Patel (born 1925).  After its dedication on October 2, 1986, the 117th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, the sculpture joined monuments to Washington, Lafayette, and Lincoln in Union Square Park as a quartet of works devoted to defenders of freedom.  Noted civil rights leader Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) was the keynote speaker at the dedication.

The monument, donated by the Gandhi Memorial International Foundation and underwritten by Mohan B. Murjani of Murjani International, Ltd., was installed at Union Square because of the tradition of protest associated with the park.  The champion of nonviolent protest and Indian independence from Britain, arguably one of the most important figures of the 20th century, is seen here grasping a staff in his right hand, looking towards a point on the horizon, and walking forward.  Clad in sandals and a cotton dhoti, Gandhi’s dress illustrates his Hindu asceticism as well as his support for Indian industries.  After its installation the monument became an instant pilgrimage site, with an annual ceremony taking place on Gandhi's birthday, October 2.

In 2001, Parks conserved the statue after it had been removed temporarily to facilitate the construction of a water main beneath the site. In 2002, the piece was reset on a more naturalistic stone base and the landscaped area around the monument, known as Gandhi Gardens, was expanded and improved. (from nycgovparks.org)

Hotel CHELSEA

The Hotel Chelsea, photo taken March 27, 2010

From the Hotel Celsea website:

The Hotel Chelsea is a world renowned residence for artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, and characters of the most singular and eccentric stripe which the imagination might conjure. In the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, the hotel is located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, near the Jacob K. Javits Center, Empire State Building, Midtown, Greenwich Village, and other NYC attractions. Built in 1883, the hotel welcomes guests, but is primarily known for its long-term residents, past and present. The hotel has always been a center of artistic and bohemian activity and it houses artwork created by many of the artists who have visited. The hotel was the first building to be listed by New York City as a cultural preservation site and historic building of note. The twelve-story red-brick building that now houses the Hotel Chelsea was built in 1883 as a private apartment cooperative that opened in 1884; it was the tallest building in New York until 1899. At the time Chelsea, and particularly the street on which the hotel was located, was the center of New York's Theater District. However, within a few years the combination of economic worries and the relocation of the theaters bankrupted the Chelsea cooperative. In 1905, the building was purchased and opened as a hotel.

Owing to its long list of famous guests and residents, the hotel has an ornate history, both as a birth place of creative modern art and home of bad behavior. Bob Dylan composed songs while staying at the Chelsea, and poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and intellectual exchange. It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas died of alcohol poisoning on in 1953, and where Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols may have stabbed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to death on October 12, 1978.

Famous visitors and residents of the Chelsea Hotel include Eugene O'Neil, Thomas Wolfe, and Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001: A Space Oddyssey while in residence). Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead passed through the hotels doors in the 1960s.

Virgil Thompson, Larry Rivers, William Burroughs, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Patti Smith, Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, and many, many others stayed here too.

PICASSO: Themes and Variations at MOMA

Woman in Armchair

Woman in Armchair

Woman in Armchair

Woman at Window (Francoise Gilot, 1952)

Francoise with a Bow in Her Hair (Lithograph, 1946)

A new exhibit called PICASSO: THEMES AND VARIATIONS opened yesterday at the Museum of Modern Art featuring Picasso's creative process through the medium of printmaking. One series reveals his changing interpretations of the women in his life including French painter, FRANCOISE GILOT, the subject in the artwork pictured above. The exhibit runs through September 30.