I was a bit Christo-ambivalent previously. But while in the city across the street from Central Park's west side yesterday, I saw the orange 'gates' being flowy and orange (before the rain) and they drew me in and I walked through the park for the first time in months (although I am near the park once a week). The paths were all displayed out before me in orange so I could see which way they were going to take me, and it was nice how they snaked up and over hills and i could see them for a far distance. The gates are custom-sized to get wider as the walkways get wider. That's nice. There are some spaces where they stop for a few yards and then begin again for no apparent reason.

The materials will all be recycled for industrial use and the orange fabric is kind of shiny and sturdy and has a nice grid pattern sewn into it. The poles are shiny. The flags are low enough that you can hop up and tag them with your fingers.

My camera battery was dying as I took a picture of a clementine on the path under orange gates. My camera battery was already completely dead by the time I passed a man in an orange sweater and an orange jacket who made eye contact with me and under the gates smiled at me as if to say 'i know i match'. My camera wouldn't have worked if I'd tried to take a picture of an orange irish setter dog straying off the path with the orange gates overhead.

+ the gates memory project
Live in NYC? Going out of town for a bit? Got pets or plants?
+ Experienced Housesitters can help: If you need an experienced and trustworthy housesitter in NYC, send a Request to Anna and Casey on DAYLO

+ Hire Butch to draw a (nude) portrait of you for your sweetheart this Valentines' day
christo and jean claud's gates are unveiled in central park today.
i've never been that into christo, but undeniably the sheer number of gates are impressive, considering the penetration throughout central park.
i guess i feel christo's work is never as integrated into landscape as i would want such undertakings to be, and the work never quite enhances the natural surrounding as much as it just seems stuck into it, applied on top of it, like an umbrella in a drink —versus a slice of pineapple or celery stalk in a drink. Celery—that's integration, a garnish you can eat! i never really wanted to eat christo's garnishes... but i'll go check the park out now that the gates are unveiled. earlier this week i saw them without their flags flying. i do like the orange in contrast with winters' cool dull greens.

if you don't live here, you can certainly absorb the gates virtually:
+ check out rion's coverage

also you can check out flickr, by tags:
christo
the gates "Can anyone remember love? It`s like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume."
—Arthur Miller, After the Fall (via Ribena)
RIP arthur miller, (1915-1995)

Announcing daylo.com,
a site where you can buy, sell, exchange services, locally.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done... on Daylo.
So, set up a Profile and offer your skills and talents...

Or post a Request for service, and find people to do the things you want and need done. Do it, on daylo. How many slogans do we have? Lots. Lots:
(Daylo, all day all night.
Daylo, do it now, do it often.
Do it. On Daylo.
Do what you do. Daylo. etc. etc.)

also unveiling: unbeige.com
jen bekman's design blog required reading for the design fetishist

AU REVOIR, PK.
MISSED BY MANY, FORGOTTEN BY NONE!

+ Someone did a test of all the online digital printers, and posted the results (via Pixietart)

+ Photos of beautiful ice storm in Geneva (scroll down for big ones)

+ The Color Match 6-color-palate-creator (works in IE only, I think)

+ Slept in Beds via koray

+ Dirty Found (order yours today)

+ "The Symbolism and Spiritual Significance of the Number 11" via el_may

+ Art Pad: digital canvas. Create your own painting. via fredshead

Despite my copy / paste approach towards blogging lately, here is some original content:

things i made up this weekend:
1. Guilty Disapointment, (glt) (ds-pointmnt), (n)


2. Muy Yum!, (descriptor of food)


3. Chunk Berry, (flavor)

UPCOMING JANUARY'S NOT 2 B MISSED FILMS AT MoMA:
The Girl from Monday. 2005. USA. Written and directed by Hal Hartley. With Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd, Tatiana Abracos. New York–based ...Hartley enjoys an international reputation for his work in film (The Unbelievable Truth, 1989), video (The New Math, 1999), digital media (The Book of Life, 1998) ... His new film is a stylized account of consumerism, free love, and terrorist paranoia in the information age, or what Hartley calls "a fake sci-fi movie about the way we live now." 84 min.
Sunday, January 30, 5:00 (introduced by Hartley).

Sundance at MoMA: Me and You and Everyone We Know. 2004. USA. Written and directed by Miranda July. With John Hawkes, July. A writer and multimedia, performance, web, recording, and video artist, July can now add "feature-length filmmaker" to her extremely-accomplished-for-the-age-of-thirty resume. Her script, which received the 2004 Sundance/NHK International Filmmaker's award, was developed through the Sundance Feature Film Lab and financed jointly by IFC Films and Film Four. The story concerns adults and children trying to figure out how to touch each other both physically and emotionally. They seek intimacy but choose tortured routes—from the sadly indirect to the wildly inappropriate—to get there. 97 min.
Monday, January 31, 8:30 (introduced by the director).

Thanks to Ms.Watt, I read the script for this 2nd one after she 'labbed' it at Sundance... It won me over, and now, yes, i have enoouurmous expectations for this movie, since I fell in love w/ July's writing when I heard "The Man On the Stairs" on npr.
(meta navel-gazing self-reference: if you google "the man on the stairs, miranda july" this very site comes up 4th... where I note "Miranda July's peice The Man On The Stairs can make you want to try to be an honest person..."

File Under "SOULLESS GO HOME":
because
"I MEAN C'MON, THIS IS NYC, NOT CANDYLAND" (—sucka pants)

+ Williamsburg's future hermetically sealed, hydroginated, you-could-be-anywhere-USA, make-your-mouth-dry, Gated-Waterfront-Community? (click for "artists' rendering" virtual-tour) (via sucka pants Read what he has to say about it. He writes. I just copy/paste the stuff these days.)

Planned for 111 South 1st St., with a "private shuttle bus to subway", even the name Schaefer Landing gives it the air of a super icky bad TV show. Ick. Go back to Orlando if you don't want to be exposed to Brooklyn. If you don't want to breathe Brooklyn. If you don't want to saunter and stumble and smell Brooklyn.

As Chris just said "I think they should call it Suck Landing. But not in the good way."

+ sucka_pants fotolog here

+ ARTOCRACY.org: "creating democracy in the art world" (artists selling prints so they can support their art-making)

HEY LADIES (and gentlemen):
+ make yo own undies....out of yo old tshirts (boxer patterns, too) from SUPERNATURALE (think global, craft local)

+ The How and Tao of Old Time Banjo: the entire book reproduced on this website.

+ Dan Estabrook: Sleep and 9 Symptoms at Catherine Edelman Gallery, January 7 - February 26, 2005

+ at $99, is it time for i-Shuffle?

+ !print your 16" x 20" photo on canvas! {January sale $25!)

+ time for some good earplugs for enjoying loud rock shows without losing pretty music

+ red's log

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
many of these links via autovac.

QUESTIONS FOR JEANNE L. PHILLIPS, chairwoman of the 55th Presidential Inaugural Committee. Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON (nytimes magazine Jan 2, 05)