After being sick all week, Cory took me to The Metropolitan Museum to cheer me up. As he put it, 'looking at pretty things cheers you up'. He knows me so well.
Also, I told him we were going because the Met Gala had just happened and I knew there was a punk exhibit and SJP killed it with her head piece .... but still . I do love pretty things.
Now, not everyone knows this (much like the young, Asian girl in front of us I schooled) but the Met, like the Natural History Museum , does not charge 25 dollars a ticket. It's a 'suggested price." Last time we came in March we had tickets from Cory's mom as a gift, this time, to cheer myself up, I told Cory I'd put two quarters down as my 'counter offer' after they tell me that will be 50 dollars for two tickets. Unfortunately for me, we got a nice, old dude taking tickets and he didn't argue my ticket price AT ALL or the Asian girl in front of us after I told her it was suggest price (she was going to leave the line because it was the cash only line and she only had 5 dollars). The Met does not even pay rent and they are IN central park. We could have paid 0 dollars but Cory said no, we have to pay something, so we did.
Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity
I do like a good Beheading
The Met Gala had a 'Punk Theme' this year which crossed over to a costume exhibit as well . They had Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Chanel, Versace etc. There were NO PHOTOS allowed, I was yelled at constantly (Cory was not pleased he heard "NO PHOTOS MISS, MISS IN BLACK, STOP TAKING PHOTOS" every 2 minutes until he took his phone back)
I still took photos, not enough, but still. PUNK ROCK LIVES.
CBGB's Bathroom
So the original bar was torn down to make something stupid like a bank but my parents went here when they lived? visited? New York City and saw the Ramones play by accident as my mom likes to tell me, SHe IS VeRY COOL OKAY. (The Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash, Blondie, would often play unannounced at the club all the time in the 70's ). So they tore down the club but the Met saved the (direst part) bathroom.
These photos are for you MOM
'Punk Clothes' by Versace
Original shirts from London by Vivian Westwood
The Museum also had a GREAT exhibit of Civil War photography. I can not even begin to say how speechless Cory and I were walking through this. We had NO IDEA it was there until I spoke to a security guard and he told us about it. The photos of slaves, the soldiers, President Lincoln (many unseen by the public), Photography was only 20 years old at the time, ONLY 20 YEARS OLD. The photos were heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. It's so easy to forget about this time period, unless watching Gone with the Wind which i do more then I should, (one summer, as my brother told Cory, I watched it once every few days). People my age, or the 'assholes generation' as I like to call it, take photos of the most meaningless stuff. Like their food before they eat it or their trendy organic, gluten free, free range beer. It's good to remember a time when photos meant something, to document a time in history that might have been whitewashed over. For example:To see the young men lying dead on a battlefield that would have been a life forgotten to history. To look at a photograph of small children that a soldier clutched in his death (blood on the edges).This solider's story, that had no identification but a photo he took out of his pocket to look at as he was dyeing, is amazing. In the information paragraphs by the bloodied photo of young children, it was stated a newspaper did a search, nation wide, until the dead soldier's family were found. So much money was raised in the search for this dyeing man who clutched a photo of his children, it established a fund and housing institute for singled mothers and wives during the civil war.
It's amazing how lucky i am to see these things living in this city.
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