Let's make happy
Archive for June, 2009
Stephin Merritt’s Coraline
Jun 3rd
Music-genius Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields just opened a new musical based on Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, with no relation to the recent movie.
The heroine has a bit of a more mature look in this version.
The New York Times review that came out earlier this week is a little mixed, but it made me think that I might like it for all its strangeness.
Coraline is playing at the MCC Theater in the West Village through July 5. I’ll be seeing it later this month!
New Jersey Transit Art
Jun 1st
Yay another trip to Oklahoma today! It is one of my top 50 favorite states (in the US). And getting there is fun too, sometimes.
Anyone been to the fancy New Jersey Transit waiting room at Penn Station? I’ve taken the train to Newark Airport from there before but hadn’t seen the waiting room before this trip for some reason. It’s such an interesting atmosphere, combining the dinginess of contemporary American rail travel with what seems like an attempt to recapture the glamour of trains from the past. So homeless people nap and tinny classical music plays overhead. Also: an art installation!
This is “New Jersey On Parade,” a piece by George Mossman Greenamyer that was commissioned by NJ Transit in 2002, according to a plaque on the wall. It’s actually a pretty neat display of New Jersey landmarks and icons made of steel suspended from a track and constantly in motion. You see, because of trains and stuff. And here is Mr. Peanut.
The nostalgic style of the piece and the clicking mechanical sound it makes going around the tracks seems so very 1940s, I think, and strangely complements the old flickering monitors, the surly passengers, the piped-in classical music, and the smell of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels mixed with body odor.
