The Week in Review part 3

Ok, so now the birdy stuff is out of the way (for now), I'll talk about some of the other things we did in New York. In between my brushes with nature I had some brushes with culture. The Natural History Museum I've already spoken about, but I also visited the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim, both famous for their art collections.

The Met is an art museum in grand style. It consists not just of paintings and sculptures, but also of history and culture (read: plundered treasures of proud ancient civilisations) in the style of the British Museum. I won't get into the curatorial debate about allowing the world to see vs returning to the country of origin, mostly because I'm not sure where I stand on the whole thing. Regardless, it is amazing to walk through the museum and see so much of human history on display. In the Egyptian section, for example, there is a whole tomb complete with carvings, painted walls (mostly intact) and statues. Last time I visited I spent most of my time in the Arms and Armour section so this time I resolved to try some of the other parts of the museum collection. Our family friends from Jacksonville, Florida (with whom I am now staying) were visiting us in New York, and Janice and I went through the Egyptian, Roman, Celtic, Byzantine and Mediaeval sections. The collections of religious (gold) artefacts from the Byzantine collections were particularly impressive, and cast a most informative light on possible motives for the Crusades back in the Middle Ages. The artistry of most of the items, and similarly the Roman and Mediaeval objects in the museum was amazing. I often feel this need for useful items to also be beautiful has been lost in modern times (though not always, think Apple). I think maybe one reason is that people often equate beautiful with expensive, so to convince a lot of people to buy a product you have to make it *look* like they can afford it. I'm not sure, I'm not into marketing. Anyway back to the museum. The Mediaeval section was surprisingly boring - mostly tapestries and religious statuary. The craftsmanship on them was amazing, but there's only so much of that I can take before I want to move on. The Egyptian and Roman sections were, of course, great. However, having spent a lot of time in the British Museum has probably jaded me on this a bit. No one really does either Egyptian or Roman quite as well as the Brits (though I hear the Cairo Museum is starting to come close) so while I can appreciate the collections at the Met are fantastic, there just isn't that wow factor there anymore. All in all an afternoon at the Met is a great way to pass time in New York and I highly recommend it for anyone coming here. Incidentally, the Arms and Armour section from memory was spectacular so make sure you get there if you can.

The Guggenheim is a very different animal to the Met. It isn't a museum, not really. It is very strongly an art gallery. It appears to specialise in Modern art. They have two main permanent exhibitions of very famous artists, and a series of spaces for current exhibitions to be put on. When we were there the main visiting exhibition was actually a series of photographic exhibitions by a single photographer. I was impressed that a photographer could get their work into the Guggenheim, but her style and subject matter (life in suburbia in the USA and sexuality) weren't really my cup of tea. I was far more interested in the permanent collections of work. Walking past works by Picasso, Van Gough, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Kandinsky etc is a kind of electric experience. Even if you don't always appreciate the craftsmanship of the works (some look like a child painted them), you have to appreciate that every single work in there is probably worth more than your house. And having criticised some of the artistry, I must say most of those pieces on display are well made, thought provoking and beautiful, all things I look for in art.

As well as the museums, we had one last brush with Broadway while I was there, to see a play called Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps. It was a short, comedic work based on a Hitchcock movie called the 39 Steps. The movie is a spy thriller full of rich characters and tense moments. The play is utterly ridiculous, but in a good way. Four actors (three men and a woman) play the entire cast of the movie. The scripting is frantic - in some cases a single actor is playing two or three people on stage. In fact a good deal of the humour in the play is based around these switches, and also in the many dropped references to Hitchcock's other movies. I think it was the actor playing Man #2 who impressed me most - his rendition of a rural scotsman innkeeper was so hilarious my family are still imitating him a week on.

So there you have it. Add in the Natural History Museum and the Lion King and we had a very rich cultural experience in the city that never sleeps. In short, a good time was had by all.