New Museum Death Match*

*This post isn't about the New Museum but some new museums

So last year the Whitney closed up shop on the Upper West Side to move into its new giant building in the Meatpacking District at the end of the High Line and everyone was like "Ooooh, you've got to go see the new Whitney" but I was having trouble getting around to it. Then, just the other month, the MET took over the old Whitney space and everyone was like "Oooooh, you've got to go see the new MET at the old Whitney." And I was like "I haven't even seen the new Whitney yet and I'm supposed to go back to the old Whitney?"

Well, good news. I've now been to both museums and am ready to report on how to best spend your hard earned Pay What You Wish dollar.

NEW WHITNEY

The new Whitney is a million dollars to visit on most days of the week but Pay What You Wish on Friday nights, so each Friday night a giant line forms outside of this impressive factory of a museum. Bryndee and I got there before it opened so the line wasn't much of a concern since they hadn't even let anyone inside yet and it didn't take us long to get in after they opened the doors.

Entering the museum, I found it to be big, brand new, and full of big art and pieces I recognized from the permanent collection. One whole floor was closed off while a new exhibit was being installed.

I'll go ahead and say it, the best thing about the new Whitney is the building and the funnest part is the outdoor spaces. You can reach each floor via the outdoor terraces and staircases. I don't know why you'd ever use an interior staircase at the new Whitney when you could be going up stairs outside.

And here's some of the permanent collection that was on display 

Back outside again to take the stairs again

I really liked these giant pieces of fried chicken

Top floor: More video art and such.

There was this room where you could lie down on this giant couch (or ottoman?) and look up at a projection of the sky but there was this mysterious little hole in the ceiling

Which turned out to be an infrared camera taping the people looking at the ceiling. Ha! You got us.

Okay, one trip down the interior stairs

A little peak at the museum's glass-walled offices

Gift Shop Highlight: This mama bear cookie jar

So, new Whitney in a nutshell: Cool building, good location near other cool stuff, pay what you wish on Friday nights, good old permanent collection on display that you'll recognize from the old Whitney if you'd seen it before, special exhibits that I saw didn't get me going, but they've since opened a portrait exhibit that sounds cool.

NEW MET AT THE OLD WHITNEY

Okay, first things first it's not called "the new Met at the old Whitney", it's the Met Breuer museum. And it's inside the iconic old brutalist Whitney, which they've added a little red to so you feel like "Oh, new stuff is happening here!"

Karrie and I went to check it out on April 22nd, the second to last Friday of April. Every day is pay what you wish at Met museums, but I was surprised that there was no line at all to get in and that the museum was relatively empty. Hot new museum? No crowds on a Friday night? Weird.

Got some good news to share right off the bat: the little adobe village is still in the staircase. Don't tell the Whitney that they forgot to bring it.

The first exhibit we saw was a retrospective on an artist I was not familiar with named Nasreen Mohamedi. I found myself quickly won over by her intricate and methodical graph paper art (and "conventional" art, too...but the graph paper art was what I really liked).

Then we went up another floor to the Breuer's big opening exhibit, "Unfinished", which was all unfinished works of art. Like the graph art, there was something about these unfinished arts that really drew me in. I can't explain exactly why it was, but I loved all the not-done art.

At first it starts with things like "Ha ha, yup, that's definitely not a finished painting!"

But then it gets more challenging and you have to ask yourself "How can you tell when an abstract expressionist work isn't finished?" and I think there was a lesson we were supposed to learn about some of the art that it wasn't complete without the introduction of a viewer looking at it or interacting with it.

From the big window of the museum's top floor I could see across the street right into a family's Seder dinner. I watched them until they noticed I was watching and got them to wave to me. And now I realize that's why the Breuer was empty that night, it was Passover! Everyone had somewhere else to be.

Gift Shop Highlight: Found a children's book I remember my mom checking out from the library when we lived in California about a man who finds a monster that turns out to be kids. I've wondered for a long time what the book even was or what it was called or who drew it and then, say 32 or 33 years later, I find it again...or I think I find it. I turned the pages with trepidation, telling myself I'd know this was definitely the book from back then if there's a picture where a man just has a bloody foot in a bag. And then there it was. A life-long mystery solved. The book is called the Beast of Monsieur Racine by Tomi Ungerer.

So, Met Breuer in a nutshell: Same old building, same old yawners UES location, great exhibits when I went.

ULTIMATE VERDICT: If you want to add a museum to a night in the West Village/Chelsea/along the High Line, check out the New Whitney, the building will at least be cool. But for a good art time, check before visiting either to find out what's on display. Because in these two visits, the Breuer exhibits win hands down, but I bet there's cool stuff at the Whitney sometimes.

The Food of April 2016

Yeah, my April 2016 overview post was long, but it would have been even longer if it had had food in it. Here's some of the food I cooked or bought last month:

COOKED

BOUGHT

Out in Queens there's this odd little place called Jollibee that I always walk by on my way to get Thai. It's the only East Coast outlet of a popular chain in the Philippines. The menu seems "normal" at first, with burgers and fried chicken on it, but then it starts having things on it like spaghetti and...well, spaghetti, on it and you're like "What's the deal with this place?" So one day I rode out to Queens to find out what was up.

I got a cheeseburger and the spicy fried chicken. The cheeseburger was enough like a McDonalds cheeseburger to be familiar but also different enough to compel me to keep eating it...there was some kind of curious sauce or something was up with the cheese or somehting, whatever it was it was like the burger was talking to me "Yeah, I'm kind of different, right? Don't you want to eat more of me to try to figure out why?"

I ordered my fried chicken spicy and it came out dusted with a formidable spice powder. Probably the spiciest fast food chicken I've ever had, it definitely gave me the occasional unexpected spice cough. Chicken came with a side of mashed potatoes and gravy along with an extra gravy. Looking around at my fellow Jollibee eaters, people were going to town with that gravy,  dunking everything in it, pouring it on everything, that was like the open secret of Jollibee "Come here for gravy food."

In conclusion, Jollibee was unusual enough (to me) to make the trip worth it and I imagine going back some time in the next 12 months to try their spaghetti. Also, the workers could not have been friendlier. A++ service.

Other foods: I gave the tacos at Taqueria Diana in the East Village another shot. Either improved or better than I remember.

Then there was this weekend I went to a place in my neighborhood called "Delicias Mexicanas" three times, the first time I indulged in this unique creation, the "Bati-Taco" which was like an openface, multiple tortilla quesadilla topped with lots of cheese and big slices of carne enchilada. Would definitely, definitely get again.

Okay, truth be told, I plan to post about two more restaurants I ate at in their own post. It'll be fun, you'll see.

This Was April

Bet you didn't expect me to have my April roundup posted by the fifth day of May, did you? Well, I did! The secret: Breaking April up into a lot of sub-posts--this is the post for nothing that became a sub-post, although some of this definitely could have.

Started April off by going to Andy's house to listen to the Priesthood Session of General Conference (before running up to Boston the next day to meet up with my folks). Andy's for General Conference with Chicken McNuggets and fries, this is becoming quite a tradition.

This is Andy laughing when he heard someone was named "Gaylynn" in a story in one of the talks.

A big change at the old new apartment: I have a rug now. It looks oranger than this in real life, but you get the idea.

Then one Friday: I meet up with Steve to walk around Harlem a bit, looking at trees grown through fences and stuff, and then go up and check out his studio in the Bronx.

Meanwhile, in Midtown, they're still skating at Rockefeller Center

Although the new art installation suggests summer is around the corner?

Ironic iconography at Salvation Burger

And the Lady of Guadalupe and I have definitely had our ups and downs before but now that we're neighbors we're getting along better.

Now here's something big: Harlem neighbors Kelsey, Amy and Nico invited me one Saturday morning on a major day trip to check out West Point and return to Storm King. I liked West Point a ton, we had a good tour of a little bit of the campus that definitely left me wanting to see a lot more.

Seems awfully un-American how much trouble Army wishes on Navy

Post-campus (and burritos), a quick visit to the Military Museum. Time was short, so we focussed on the weapon exhibits.

Then it was a quick drive over to Storm King for a whirlwind walk to its farthest points and back.

I hadn't seen the mirror fence before. Mirror fence makes quite the optical illusion.

Back to more art!

Before returning to the city we were headed for a Hagen Daz that had turned up on our maps until we came across this far more American opportunity

Another day, a daytime Soho walk

A terrible bummer of a discovery: Peep on Spring street has been shut down. I don't think there's a restaurant I've been to more in the city. I think I've taken absolutely every visitor I ever had here. I remember the first time I walked by it and looking in at its shiny, space age hipness and thinking "Oh, I probably can't eat here" but no, we wound up having quite a history, Peep and I.

Okay, let's finish this walk on a happier note...

Some evening in the lobby with Ned

One afternoon I meet up with Lexia and her girls for one last visit before Lexia and Adam move off to Maine (with their daughters, of course). Having arrived at New York at the same time, it's a nostalgia-stirring loss to see Lexia go. Whatever happened to 2003?

On a Saturday night I check out the big Enchantment Under the Stars gala to raise money to send kids away for the summer. If there's anything I'll support, it's definitely sending kids away!

One weekday I find myself handling a little business downtown, followed by my first visit to the Oculus, which was kind of tricky to find an entrance to.

And then, on the last day of the month, I find myself joining in on a biscuit-crawl through the Lower East Side.

Post biscuits, I go it a lone for a bit before meeting up with Patricia, Ned and Jeff at Mission Chinese

Later on: I blow out candles on the Upper West Side