Category: may 2017

Words of Wisdom – V

The Humble Fabulist2 Comments

*Recent Resident Posting* on the bulletin board of my building’s website:

Title: Amazing dog whisperer here to play with your dogs 😀 (Price: Free)

SO… I recently moved into the Ivy and noticed that there are a ton of dogs lovers in the building. And I’ve probably made small-talk with about 10 of you, just so you’d let me pet and play with your pup for a few minutes. Seeing that my roommate is allergic (I know, what a shame), I’m trying to get creative with my options to satisfy my dog-petting itch.If you need a dog-sitter or someone to play with your dog, I’m your guy 🙂

I’m a working professional that likes dogs. That’s about it. Thanks!

J.

May 26th, 2017

An invigorating walk on a Friday evening after work

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because nothing better than a riverside breeze to wipe away the noise of a full week’s work (that, and a strong gin & tonic, but never before sunset – one has to stick to one’s principles)! (showing off my funky sunglasses that are bigger than yours…)

Hudson River Park

May 26th, 2017

Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

The Humble Fabulist4 Comments

Some cemeteries are functional, others Gothic or haunted; some include beautiful gardens or war Memorials. Then, there is Green-Wood Cemetery; where visitors can take self-guided tours, walk on lanes with names like ”Sweet-Gum Path” or hop on a green trolley driven by an expert guide, watch the sun go down over the calm waters of a lake, take deep breaths of fresh air, admire a magnificent view of Manhattan.

For Green-Wood Cemetery must be the quietest, most tranquil 478 acres of land in New York and, since development here works mostly underground, the largest open space in the City that is in no danger of getting crammed with more tall buildings, any time soon.

If you need some downtime for quiet contemplation, honour the memory of loved ones, pay your respects to war heroes, notable residents or celebrities (we paid ours to the Bernsteins and Mrs. Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld, better known by her stage name Lola Montez) or just take in the views, look no further than Greenwood Heights in Brooklyn.

Green-Wood Cemetery is reached from the Atlantic/Barclays Center stop in Brooklyn – with the R train, direction Bay Ridge. Exit at the 25th Street station. Check the visitors’ page on their website for more info, further directions and opening hours.

May 21st, 2017

Socializing

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in Lincoln Center.

With music and drinks, followed by more music in an evening tagged as ”born of ice and fire”.

With the New York Premiers of Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Wing on Wing, written for and featuring soprano sisters Anu and Piia Komsi, and Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s etherial Aeriality (ice) –

and a superb performance by the New York Philharmonic’s Artist-in-Residence for 2016-2017, renowned violinist Leonidas Kavakos, who played Brahms’ Violin Concerto (fire).

After the concert, we were joined by some of the Philharmonic musicians who, following the ”obligatory” Q&A session, simply mingled with the guests for some more music and drinks.

No, Mr. Kavakos was not among them.

#nyppolaris

May 20th, 2017

Explicitly Erotic

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“This Section Contains Explicit Material. Young visitors should be accompanied by an adult.” A sign, elegantly placed at the entrance of the gallery, warning visitors that they were about to step into Japan’s most intimate world. Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world), flourished as an artistic genre during the Edo period. Catering to a clientele drawn from the rising middle classes, ukiyo-e artists focused on subjects closely associated with the fashionable, worldly pleasures of Edo itself, rather than the prescribed themes of Japan’s classical painting schools, traditional patronized by the nobility and samurai elite. The woodblock print, more affordable than paintings and easily reproducible, proliferated in concert with the rise of the ukiyo-e genre. Beauties, wrestlers, actors were typical subjects of ukiyo-e prints, as were erotic scenes known as shunga.

Most master printmakers designed shunga. Varying in style and explicitness, these prints were appreciated privately rather than being displayed on walls.

The examples on view here, by the artist Koryūsai, portray a variety of sexual pairings.

Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770)
Two Couples in a Brothel, 1769-70

Two separate encounters in a brothel are staggered across this skillfully composed print by Harunobu. In the background, an adult man with a fully shaved pate is having his moustache tweezed by a female prostitute, an act of intimacy. In the foreground, a slightly more mature prostitute attempts to woo a coy young wakashu who fiddles with a folded fan and diffidently resists her embrace.

Attributed to the Utamaro School
Woman and Wakashu, ca. 1790s

Pages from an unidentified Utagawa-school erotic book, ca. 1850s
Two half-sheets glued together from a printed book with colour illustrations

In this illustration, a prostitute sporting the shaved sot and forelocks of a wakashu takes charge with a male client. Her display of aggressiveness – conventionally gender-coded as a male prerogative – would have been typical of female sex workers, like haori-geisha, who sported the wakashu hairstyle.

Attributed to Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1750)
A Prostitute with a Man, late 17th century

Women Using a Dildo, ca. early 1800s

The two women in this print appear to be ladies-in-waiting of a daimyō’s (feudal lord’s) household. Sequestered in inner chambers where men were not allowed, such women were required to be abstinent but encouraged to engage in self- and mutual-pleasuring for their health.

”A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints”, has been an enlightening exhibition and a very interesting look into the erotic life of the Edo-period Japan. Multilayered, complicated and, in many ways, much more progressive than one would have thought.

Japan Society, May 19th 2017