This is the time of year that every thing starts winding down and moving to a more peaceful time. The semester is almost over, and soon we will all be separating for a month. First, I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this seminar, and I thought it was a great learning experience! I think we all turned into partial snobs.
But to get to the main point of the post, I wanted to mention a few snobbish things to do while on vacation if anyone is interested in keeping up their noses. So here are some of the great things to do in this wonderful city come holiday time!
1. Walk around! Our city is fantastic, and in the wintertime there are displays everywhere! Obviously the most well known ones are Times Square, and Rockefeller Center. Those are great places to start to se the Tree and the various lights in the City Center. But once you hit the tree on 5th keep walking! There are the Macy’s and Lord and Taylor Window’s near Herald Square that are great places to go see.
2. Do something fun! At the Jewish Museum, there is a Children’s exhibit that allows you to pretend as if you are an archeologist for the day. You can “find” vessels that relate to the time of the Maccabees that tie in directly with the holiday of Chanukah. It is a great thing to do around the holidays. It will be a slightly different experience than seeing the Cone Sister exhibit, but it promises to be more hands on than walking around and staring at the various Matisse and Picasso’s that are on display.
3. See a show! As everyone knows, the City is one of the best places to see a show. But instead of seeing a Broadway show, if you want to maintain your snob status, maybe check out Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center is beginning it’s annual run of the Nutcracker, which is sure not to disappoint. It will be simmilar to the Ballet that we saw in the first act of “Fall for Dance.” Just do not go in to it expecting to hear someone counting to ten in another language.
4. Visit a Museum! You have your choice of museums in the city as we all know, so try for something out of the ordinary. From now until April 22nd, the Cloisters is having an exhibition entitled, “The game of Kings: Medieval ivory Chessmen From the Isles of Lewis.” These Chessmen are similar to the pieces used in Harry Potter, and they will not move on their own, but will still amaze you. Obviously this will be different than any other exhibition that we as a class saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I hope some of you take up my suggestions, but more importantly, I hope you have a great vacation doing whatever it is that you all end up doing!
Talking about the festival time. A lot comes to my mind. Having been born and brought up in a different country my festivals are different from those marked in red on a Western Calender. However, Christmas is celebrate all around the world. I want to bring to your notice how much the world has commercialized today. It has made the festival of giving and merriment into a profit increasing period.
Some of the myths related to Christmas are media spun. Simply writing this makes me feel like I’m killing elves. You would want to say why would I post about commercializing in a blog that talk about arts in new york. Well I want to start of by saying that plots used in advertisement of products uses a great deal of art. The way this art is aimed at the consumer is what helps heighten their profit ratio.
Santa Claus comes from the belief in St.Nicholas. However, Coca-cola starting in New York was the first to use the image of a rotund white old man with a beard in red clothes carrying gifts that were Coke bottles on billboards and signs. This shows what a massive effect an add campaign can have on a community, In this case the whole world. Thus, at times let’s take a step back and think what Christmas is all about. It was the idea of giving joy and not materialistic gifts.