Monthly Archives: July 2012

Happy Anniversary, NYC and Me!

Posted by katie ett on July 27, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york is neat
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It hit me this morning that I might have just missed the anniversary of my moving to NYC. And indeed, I went back to my suuuuuper-old LiveJournal and found this post:

Seven years, guys! And how my life has changed! I know how to get anywhere on the subway now and can name you the best restaurant for any occasion. I like big, floppy slices of pizza now and actually eat seafood! I’ve lived in Chelsea, Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Williamsburg, and Downtown Brooklyn in apartments that cost five times more and hold five times less than my apartments back in Ohio. I moved here knowing one person, and now I have a whole group of people I love.

I NEVER thought this would be my life, and I’m so glad it is. Thanks to my last boyfriend, Todd, for making it all possible and to everyone except the jerks on the train for making it wonderful.

Keeping Classy on the Bus

Posted by katie ett on July 25, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york is neat
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My bus has really quieted down in the mornings now that school’s out, so there are many fewer people being pushed back outside onto the sidewalk just as the doors close to make more room for the people inside, homeless dudes in plastic-bag-shoes being dragged off by cops, and standing riders ending up in other people’s laps as the driver punches the brake every five seconds as if he doesn’t realize there’s a bus full of people behind him with one hand on the metal bar and one hand holding the bags of stuff all New Yorkers are required to haul around thanks to our not having cars to leave them in. But I can still rely on mean old ladies for entertainment.

Yesterday, the bus stopped at Wall Street, and I looked up from my book just in time to see an old white lady in a teal lace shirt that was way too sexy for her stumbling over the old Indian woman sitting next to her in white linen pants and a black ruffled tank top that was also way too sexy for her. The white lady had been sitting in the window seat but ended up sprawled across the Indian woman’s lap, legs still by the window but face suspended over the aisle, almost in the crotch of the guy across the aisle from them. The white lady righted herself and collected her things to exit the bus, but she wasn’t two steps down the aisle before she turned and gave the Indian lady the craziest stink-eye I’ve ever seen from anyone over the age of ten.

Read the rest here!

What is Art?

Posted by katie ett on July 19, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under arts and crafts, good times at everyone else's expense, living in new york is neat
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I love art, and I love to make fun of it, too. When my friends Ellie and Kinard came to visit late last year, we went to MoMA one afternoon, and before we left, we had a long conversation with my roommate about who gets to decide what art is. I think his basic argument (and I’m sure he’ll lambast me in the comments if I’m wrong) was that the individual observer gets to decide; if it’s art to you, it’s art. I think Ellie‘s basic argument was that nobody gets to say that something isn’t art. I think Kinard‘s basic argument was, “Let’s go to Shake Shack again.” Just kidding; that was me.

But yeah, I’ll defend your art to the death, even if it involves throwing soup on a statue. Still, here are some of the pieces at MoMA that gave me pause:

Questionable MoMA Art
Belgian Lion by Marcel Broodthaers

The placard for this said, “Found object in frying pan.” It was under glass, which makes it all the funnier to me. ART.

Questionable MoMA Art

These are evenly-spaced orange squares. ART!

Questionable MoMA Art

There was a great story behind these that I don’t remember. Some benefactor said he’d give some artist, like, 10 bajillionty dollars to paint him an original piece every year or something, and this is what the artist gave him. And he totally didn’t murder the artist after receiving the first one. ART!!

Questionable MoMA Art

I don’t think there was actually a rifle shot in this wall. AAAAART!

Questionable MoMA Art

I absolutely love this description: “Each site was photographed at the time the marker was placed with no attempt made for a more or less interesting or picturesque representation of the location.” NOT-EVEN-TRYING ART!

Questionable MoMA Art

I actually kind of like this one.

Questionable MoMA Art

And this one, too.

But here’s some more ART:

Robert Barry’s 90mc Carrier Wave (FM) “consists of radio waves generated by a hand-engineered FM radio transmitter installed in this gallery but hidden from view”. INVISIBLE ART!

While all of this is a little laughable, it’s all a little wonderful, too. And really, I’d rather be too willing to call something art than not willing enough. Take a look at Mark Rothko’s No. 10 and tell me you want to be the person described in the last sentence of the MoMA placard next to the piece:

“The irregular patches of color characteristic of the artist’s Multiform paintings of 1948 seem to have settled into place on this canvas, which Rothko divided horizontally into three dominant planes of color that softly and subtly merge into one another. Between 1949 and 1950 Rothko simplified the compositional structure of his paintings and arrived at this, his signature style. He explained, ‘The progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer.’ MoMA acquired No. 10 in 1952. The painting—the first by Rothko to enter the collection—was so radical for the time that a trustee of the Museum resigned in protest.

ART!

Khak Shir and the Brown Teff Garden

Posted by katie ett on July 18, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession
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A couple of weekends ago, Kamran was reminded of a drink he had on his grandfather’s farm back in Iran as a kid. He remembered tiny orange seeds that stayed suspended when stirred into sweetened water, and Google confirmed that this is in fact a real thing–khak shir–and not just the Sunday afternoon hallucinations of a mad Persian. We went to his local health food store and picked up the seeds–called teff–because this is NYC, and you can totally just remember something from your Iranian childhood and then go buy it down the street.

We came back to his apartment, attempted to rinse the seeds, and promptly spilled half of the bag into the sink. Kamran then made a glass of khak shir (does anyone else think that should be pronounced like “cocksure“?) using warm tap water and not enough sugar, so it was pretty gross, and both of us refused to have any more than a sip.

And then he went to visit his parents in California for a week while a beautiful teff garden grew in his sink strainer.

Brown Teff Garden

Bad Girl Gone Good Gone Bad

Posted by katie ett on July 17, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under narcissism
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I started being a little hardcore in the gym a few weeks ago. “Hardcore” for me, of course, is a relative term, and you’ll note that my hardcoreness conveniently coincided with packing for the Jersey shore and realizing–oh, crap, a whole week in a bathing suit. I’ve been going to the gym off and on for the last few years thanks to Kamran’s prodding and the lingering guilt that comes with living in an apartment building that has a gym right inside, but I’ve mostly done as little as possible: using the stationary bike so I can sit, ramping up the resistance on the elliptical just enough that I have an excuse to go slow, anything else that’ll keep me from sweating. Because eww, sweat.

But then I got on the stairclimber the other day because all of the ellipticals were taken by those stupid girls who wear sports bras without shirts and then hold on to the handrails so they can move just their legs a hundred miles a minute. I have no idea what would compel someone to think that’s any kind of workout, but hey, it’s probably better than sitting quietly on the stationary bike and hoping no one notices that my legs aren’t moving at all, so instead of kicking one of them off of the elliptical, I just took the stairclimber. And then I sweated and sweated and sweated, because that shit is hard. And I. Felt. Awesome.

Now (meaning for the past few days), I totally scorn everyone in the gym who doesn’t appear to be working as hard as I am. 80-year-old lady only doing eight reps on the chest press? I SEE YOU. Superfat dude on the spinning bike going negative miles per hour? I SEE YOU. Oh, you’ve already lost 63 pounds doing that? I STILL JUDGE YOU.

I’m also really excited about eating “well” right now. I’m reading Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat, and I haven’t even gotten to the part where he tells me to stop eating refined grains and processed crap, but I still spent most of Sunday afternoon prepping vegetables and fruits and multigrain crackers and lean meats to take in the teeny-tiny totally-not-enough-food-to-feed-a-real-human bento box that I bought years ago and then never used when I got excited about Adventures in Bentomaking for a very, very short time.

I’m also really excited about saving money right now. I make myself a yearly budget, and I generally stick to it so I don’t end up out on the streets, but I’m never very precise. Well, I sat down the other day and really figured out exactly how much cash I have to spend every week, and then I went and took this week’s allowance out of the bank. And when I bought my stepmom’s birthday present online today, I went and put the equivalent amount of cash back in the bank. I thought about buying a pair of jeans when I got home, but then I stopped myself and actually had superiority feelings about my self-control.

I know myself, though, and I know how short-lived all of this is. I’ll get bored of the gym and will go back to spending half my time there cleaning my weight machines and filling up my itsy-bitsy water cooler cup over and over. I’ll really want some chicken fingers and then some pizza and then some ice cream and then a whole week of burgers and fries. I’ll scrimp and save for months and then one day explode into a fireball of Forever 21 leggings and BareMinerals lipstick and Nikon macro lenses, all bought on credit. It’s like I’m only good so I can later be so, so bad.