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90 Years!

Jon's grandpa turned 90 two weeks ago on August 5th. On August 15th we celebrated his ninetieth birthday.



Jon bought him a cognac from 1929 to drink every year on his birthday. (Jon's holding onto it for him so he doesn't drink the whole thing before next year.) He bought a glass for his grandpa to drink from too. His grandpa had a lot of wine already. He thought the glass was his present and admired it very kindly.



But, no! It wasn't just a cup you get, Grandpa!



Check this out. A bottle of cognac from at least 1929. Almost as old as you are!



The bottle has a wax seal that took some prying with the lobster fork.



Toast time!



It was a very nice event. And I survived the entire evening without feeling sick!

Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop

The Big Bambú exhibit was really amazing. I've never been to the Met's roof before, but aside from being on the roof for the first time, the whole experience of the exhibit was freakin awesome.



Never mind that their piece's subtitle sounds a lot like the Beastie Boys, which is quite neat, the artwork is big and impressive. And you can climb up it (on a guided tour).



And you can touch and hide behind it.



And you can pretend that you're a panda.





And you can view it while seated.



And you can buy expensive food and drinks (including champagne) and walk around it. (The $3 chocolate chip cookie was such a good snack.)



And you can see a really weird apartment on top of an apartment where Batman might live when he's in the city for business. (Taller building on the left.)



And Doug and Mike Starn are from New Jersey. And New Jersey rocks!

And if you're walking through the park to see if the SummerStage line isn't too long for Public Enemy (especially for Flava Flav) on your way back from lunch, you just might see Yoko Ono canoodling with her beau.



(It's really her in the hat wearing all black, and while I'm not above taking celebrities' photos with my phone, I won't run ahead of her just to try to get a photo of her face. That's just creepy.)

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity

Sunday was the last day of the American Woman exhibit at the Met. It was not as cool as I thought it would be. I was kind of expecting something like the the Dior exhibit or the Haute Couture exhibit--well-lit beautiful clothing that is perfectly displayed so that when you walk around you can somewhat see another angle of the pieces you just passed while seeing a whole new piece.

What the American Woman exhibit was:

Pretty clothes. Old clothes. Kind of musty. Dark lighting to protect the clothes. No photography. Crowded rooms. Lots of women and girls. And lots of tripping over them.

The clothes were on mannequins in appropriate settings. It was kind of like walking through the mammal exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History--not that there was a lot (or any, if I could tell) animal skins on display--just the little scenes of what the clothes were supposedly like when they were worn.

One nice thing was that they highlighted Women's Suffrage, which was actually meaningful to me after reading this NYTimes article about it. But the display was kind of cheesey. There were projections of films of the Woman's Suffrage and maybe two or three pieces.

The last room was a complete failure, I think. No clothes. Just projections of celebrities, like a teenager's screensaver or something. I might be wrong because, not seeing any actual clothing, I just blew by the projected images to the exit to get some air finally.

The exhibit encompassed a nice collection of time periods until they went to Hollywood glamour, which was kind of odd. There was no Jackie-O/Mad Men-type clothing or bell bottoms or leg warmers or flannel shirts or jeggings or anything epitomizing the last sixty years of the American woman. While I failed to read what the exhibit was about because I hate crowding around the introduction and every other sections' introductions, it just didn't make sense visually.

If it were up to me, I'd have an animatronic fashion show exhibiting the clothing at all angles and try to show the pieces' fluidity rather than have stationary, kind-of-creepy mannequins wearing the ensembles or at least better lighting and an air freshener.

Here are some of the highlights in my opinion. And thankfully, the photos are well lit!

Cute tunic:


Lace vests seems pretty modern considering that sweater-material vests are cool nowadays:


Really pretty peach dress:


Awesome sweater:


This dress is completely beaded--it's pretty amazing. Never mind corsets and all the hoop skirts and crinolines of the century before, I have no clue how they sat in these.


A few women gasped with such adoration of this dress. I don't get it myself.


I'm glad I went, but I just wish it were better than it was. If you went or heard about the exhibit from someone else, what was your/his/her opinion? What was your favorite piece?

Foggy and Pink Out

Mitsuwa Summer Festival

Taiko Masara!

Mitsuwa was jam-packed--of course. Joy, Wee, and Chris joined us for ramen and the festivities. We then went to Marshall's Shoe Mega Shop where I got boots for fall/winter, Joy got a pair of sandals that we thought might go well with her bridesmaid dress and peer pressured her into buying, and Wee got two pairs of flats--one of them Stuart Weitzmans. (Joy's shoes unfortunately didn't go well with the bridesmaid dress, so she returned them.) We then went to Pathmark to try to get a Wattamelon Roll. Pathmark, being Pathmark, didn't have it. Chris got some watermelon and blueberry/raspberry Italian ices instead. Before heading back to the apartment to talk about blobfish and sunfish and watch a TED lecture on sunfish, we stopped by Target where we got sriracha peas, free eggs (I had a coupon!), and looked at travel games for our long haul to Hawaii in October.

Saturday was such a beautiful day weather-wise. Breezy, not humid, warm but not hot superhot in the sun. Really, really nice.

Jets!