The Gates

SO after all the hype I finally got a chance to see it for myself. I was expecting to be somewhat under whelmed after reading all the hype and criticisms all week. But I wasn’t. I thought it was great. So for all you philistines, here is my smug artsy fartsy take on it.

We entered the park from Central Park South and my first impression was how massive a scale the project was. They were everywhere. To see it yourself is quite amazing. They cover every lane, every sidewalk, every bridge and staircase, with only about 5 or ten feet between them. The color itself is really striking. The Park in February is the most monochrome site you’ll ever see, so to see huge swaths of orange all over was really something.

Another aspect you can never get from pictures is the atmosphere. You could tell you were part of a big “event”. People were everywhere. Huge crowds all walking and taking pictures. Tons of street vendors selling cheap knockoff gates crap. But you could really feel the energy that this was a once in a lifetime thing.

What I really liked was the little things. The photographer in me saw a thousand different pictures from a thousand different angles. Each one as visually interesting as the next. The way they would even have gates down stairs into tunnels, how when you stand on a long sidewalk all you can see is a seemingly endless series of gates going off in the distance, The way the fabric moved in the breeze, and how it kept creating a new visual dynamic with each moment. When the sun shined it would create this warm orange glow on the faces of everyone walking under it. I liked that. I coudlve spent all day getting lost in the park, but we only spent an hour or so. Oh well. At least I got to see it. That alone gives me cred in the stuck up froo froo art world cocktail party circuit.

Here are some pictures I took. To see more, go Here, here, and here.

They are all for sale in the “Ed’s Daily Rant” Gift shop located in Midtown Manhattan on the corner of 5th avenue and 61st street.



And finally, with a nod to the Isht, heres an ebay find of the day. Ebay search for “gates” (I was looking for a poster), revealed this, which will also go nice in my living room.

I havent't mentioned this til now, but I've been interviewing for a new job recently, and I just got a 3rd call back.

Cross your fingers.

So some GOP state senators want to secede from Washington State?

Hmm. OK. Id be interested to see the breakdown of how much state tax money the urban democratic left part of the state generates compared to how much the rural republican right side of the state spends.

Wanna see clips of the best TV moments of the week?

Go here.

Now that keepaway, or as some people refer to it, "Football", is mercifully over, its time to get ready for the greatest game, the thinking mans game, the National Pastime.

Baseball.

Pitchers and Catchers show up tommorow. Full workouts start next week. And in the meatime, I have this and this to make me go to bed every night with a smile on my face.

Did I mention that the Red Sox are World Champions? And that they did it by humilating the Yankees in the most colossal choke in sports history?

Well, they did.

Now This is more like it. A thoughtful negative review of The Gates, by the former Parks Commisioner.

Other than the now typical snobby "People call us stupid if we don't like it" remark at the end, it was probably the most well written review if something in which I disagreed.

Utterly discredited laughingstock Armstrong WIliams continues the BS "IOU" spin.

Perhaps this is a good time to mention, there exists no Social Security surplus. The social security trust fund is filled with old, yellowed scraps of paper that read, "IOU."

United States Treasury Bonds are now "old, yellowed scraps of paper that read, "IOU." "

Man, it's good he pissed away whatever self respect or credibility already, otherwise this could have hurt him.

Your honor, I didn't steal money from the bank, only crumpled up pieces of green paper.

Case dissmissed!!!

Olberhman is a good blogger, but this critique of Christo’s Gates is, well, stupid. Its not that he doesn’t like it, since it’s a “you love it or hate it” thing and everyone is entitled to have an opinion, its that his critique just shows what a snob he is.

Some of my favorite parts:
I live across the street from Central Park. I don't have to -- it's my choice and I don't seek your sympathy.

Thanks Keith for warning me about feeling sorry for you living in a NY apartment overlooking central park. Cuz I was just about to scream “Oh that poor man!!”. But you stopped me.

But I do it because Central Park is inherently beautiful: winter, summer, spring and fall. If you live in this city, and you can afford to have a window that shows you just a swatch of the park, you must.
It reconnects you to the Earth. It reminds you of every green place you’ve ever been. And it's almost non-commercialized. I can't see a billboard or an advertisement from my window -- and not a lot of people in a city anywhere in this country can say that. I don't need a bunch of giant, glowing orange croquet wickets fouling that up.

Oh we simply MUST get a multi million dollar apartment overlooking Central park. You see, it reconnects you to mother earth!!

The city will spend thousands of dollars of my taxpayer money to pull the cops from things like, ohhh, counter-terrorism and crime prevention, to make sure nobody spray-paints any of the 7,500 "Gates" with the message "You Left Your Laundry Out, Lady."

This argument is totally bogus (and irrelevant to a critique of the actual piece)
The city does this with EVERY event that draws large crowds. They do it for the Tonys, the Grammys, the Republican convention, Fashion week (Go Kera Saun!). And they don’t do it JUST so they can “protect” the art that the regular joe non snob like you hates, they do it because there will be hundreds of thousands of tourists. So that money IS going for crime prevention and counter terrorism.

But the best was this sarcastic jibe:
Only the really hip, the really artistic, can tell just how beautiful The Gates are. Everybody else is a Philistine.

How postively O'Reillyish of him.

Heck, I'm not hip, nor really artistic, but I like the Gates. I'm going to see them myself next week (since I can't afford a NYC apartment overlooking Central Park). If that makes me not cool enough for Keith, then gee I guess I'll have to live with it.

Right wing nutcase and religuos fanatic Alan Keyes, the man who declares that Jesus would have voted for him over Obama, finally shows what kind of family values man he really is.

Now Maya Keyes -- liberal, lesbian and a little lost -- finds herself out on her own. She says her parents -- conservative commentator and perennial candidate Alan Keyes and his wife, Jocelyn -- threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her.

A truly disgusting man.

Senator Tom Coburn. The only Republican Senator who actually makes sense.

"You know," he said, "I immediately thought about silicone breast implants and the legal wrangling and the class-action suits off that.
"And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. . . . In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier."

And he would know. He's a doctor.

State of the Union Address by George W. Bush:
"By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."

At this point the Democrats, rightly and proudly cried out “NO!". And despite what the right wing media would have you believe, it wasn’t unprecedented. Republicans have openly booed and jeered Clinton numerous times. Some walked out on his speech, and some congressmen even refused to show up to the speech altogether, and urged others to do the same. Don’t remember the right wing media being horrified at the indignity of it all back then.

But more importantly, the Democrats cried out “NO!” because bush was LYING.

In 2042 the Social Security Trust fund, created in the eighties to shore up the worker/retiree disparity of the baby boom generation, will be used up. Meaning the only money going into Social Security would be the current payments. This would mean that, if we do absolutely NOTHING in the next 40 years (an impossibility, but for sake of argument lets go with it), in 2042 Social Security could only pay out 73% of promised benefits for the next 36 years. Then in 2078 it will pay out 68% of benefits.

So it is a flat out LIE to say that having to reduce benefits is the same as saying “the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."

If you ask me the Democrats were being to civil. I would’ve walked out in disgust and demanded Bush be arrested.

Why arrested? Simple. Because lying to Congress is a felony .

But thats because I have a spine. The democrats in congress and the media are a different story.

Even Japans textbooks are better than ours.

I saw this tool at the recent CT Forum on “Extreme Politics” and after reading this it reminded me of the most annoying moment of the night. During the Q and A some rightwinger asked how “fair” it is for Tony Blankley to appear on a panel on politics surrounded by Liberals (of course one was British Journalist Katty Kay, the other former CNN producer and biographer Walter Isaacson, which obviously means they MUST be flaming liberals), to which Blankley replied “We’re used to it”, meaning conservatives are outnumbered in the "liberal" press.

TO which my head almost exploded as I thought of FOX news (which Blankley works for), Talk radio, etc…

SO that’s another reason to dislike the guy. That is, if the racist smear artist who works for a paper owned and operated by a cult leader who thinks hes Jesus.


Either way, the CT Forum worth going to whatever they have. they're always good.

Social Security "crisis" solved.

Nature is whack.

Reason # 3,464 Our Vice President, and Eagles fan, is a lying hack;
(CNN) -- A Washington state utility released audiotapes Thursday that it said revealed bankrupt energy trader Enron Corp. plotted to take a power plant off-line in 2001 to jack up electric prices in Western states. That same day, shortages of power forced rolling blackouts in northern California that affected about 2 million customers. [snip] "We want you guys to get a little creative ... and come up with a reason to go down," the Enron worker tells the plant employee on one of the tapes.

Cheney in 2001:
But what's happened in California, I would argue is, they've taken the route of saying, "Well, we can conserve our way out of the problem. All we have to do is conserve; we don't have to produce any more power." So they haven't built any electric power plants in the last 10 years in California, and today they've got rolling blackouts, because they don't have enough electricity; they've got rising prices; they've got a whole complex of problems that are caused by relying only on conservation and not doing anything about the supply side of the equation.

Yeah. Its conservations fault....

McCAIN: I think he [President Bush] made the strong argument for personal savings accounts, and also I think he did point out that -- look, we could wait until 15 years from now when there's no money at all left in the Social Security trust fund, but I don't think we want to wait till then


Remember when McCain was respected?

Yeah. Me either.

Rick Santorum, worthless, soulless,lying, hack piece of crap?

Sadly, yes.

My favorite part besides him scaring seniors with blatant lies and pretending it was a presentation FROM the Social Security Administration, was him referring to United States Treasury Bonds, as just "I.O.U.'s" and "slips of paper".

Presented without comment.

Amazing. A Godfather Video game.

Not the fact that there is a Godfather video game, these days they’d do a Playstation version of Kevin Bacons the Woodsman if they could. Whats amazing is they got James Caan, Marlon Brando and Robert “I wont do Godfather 3 cuz its cashing in” Duvall to do the voices.

Also, I heard if you hit pause, Right, Up, Up, Triangle, Left, Left, and right you make Kay get another abortion.

Media Matters started it, and now its picking up steam in the mainstream press.

My favorite is reading the Rushlike hysterical right wing response from the "news" website that is"committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers".

So the Virginia legislator is creating taxpayer funded licence plates with right wing messages on them?

It's one thing for some nerd to have a Starfleet Academy sticker, or a cheesy Terrell Owens ribbon. But to have my tax dollars pay for it?

From something I read from Atrios this morning.

Yet another reason the press are a bunch of spineless pussies.

The official, who spoke before an auditorium full of journalists, insisted on not being quoted by name. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said the goal in not allowing the use of the official's name was to keep the focus on Mr. Bush.

So an on the record briefing and the press wont report who it is because the White House said please?

Yet a year ago when Richard Clarkes revelations of vast incompetence in the war ont error came out, it was the White House who gleefully allowed Clarkes identity to be revealed as the man giving an OFF THE RECORD background briefing, in hopes of hurting his credibility.

And who in the press was it that asked permission to reveal his name? Why, FOX news of course!

No doubt they are following there masters wishes today though.

ANd dont forget press. Its "Personal accounts", not "Private, because private didn't poll well. If you continue to say private, it means your liberally biased!!