100 Places to See in America Before...

http://www.100placesusa.blogspot.com
"Life is not measured by the numbers of breaths we take, but by the Places and Moments that take our breaths away." - Anonymous-
This blog is about practical information on the places I have been and want people to see and places I would love to see.

Salvador Dali

This is one of the very few of Dali's work on display at MOMA during my visit.  The rest were on loan... I love this one so much.  It's call "Little Theatre".  If you zoom in, you'll see all the intricate details which are amazing... I truly love it, especially, the hanging red shoe.

Why Started this Blog?

I just browsed through this New York Time's Best Seller "1,000 Places to See Befoe You Die"and thought it was quite a good book. However, there are certain places that I would not necessarily put on my list... and then binngggg!!! I thought why don't I start my own list... And that's why this blog came about. I want it to be my own travel guide with useful information... information that I or like-minded people would find useful... like directions, what to bring, when to go, and snapshots of the place. In the United States alone, there are so many beautiful, romantic, history, gigantic, and wondrous places to see. Starting my list at 100 will make it less of a chunk of task. And this list is not in any particular order, maybe sometimes. Mostly, it's based on places that I know of and have gone to, and have been wanting to go, etc. I hope to revise and expand the list as I go along... and who knows, maybe it will reach 1,000 places or more some days.

Philadelphia

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

I don't have to say much about this academy-award winning film. I loved it at the time I saw it years ago. Now that I have been to Philadelphia. It's time to revisit the movie again. If you have not seen it, this is a must-see in your list.

Who Killed The Electric Car?

I just watched this disturbing and amazing documentary. Worth checking it out.  Amazingly, it all happened pretty much here in California.

More on Vulcan Salute

Learn more about interesting facts on Vulcan Salute... Which is not what I thought the statute did.  Anybody know more about the Goddess hand gesture, please let me know.  In fact has has g Jewish origin as you can find out more here.

 

 

Walt Disney World - Magic Kingdom

This is another test...This piece is very long, but I found that this resolution is ok. When I save, probably have to save for screen viewing, not for email. Dimension is 320x240

Christmas In New York 2004

This was the 100th year anniversary of Time Square and my first time in New York. The quality of the video list horrible, but it's the only few video clips I made and I want to test it. Wonder what I could do to improve the resolution or making the screen smaller.

Vulcan Salute

Here's more information on the Vulcan Salute that I mentioned in my Philadelphia's pictures.  Find ou more here for all you Trekkies out there.

Benjamin Franklin on Colbert Report

Jackson Pollock - Still Capturing the Vibes of our Modern Days

This Pollock's piece "One" is called "a landmark of Abstract Expressionism".  His paintings in this series (shown below) epitomize my feeling expressed earlier about modern art resonating the vibes of our modern-day societies... nervous, chaotic turbulence tied together with ever thining web of old-world orders (honor, courage, integrity, family value, etc.)... The description found in museum's publication is so eloquent that I would like to quote here.

"One is a masterpiece of the "drip," or pouring, technique, the radical method that Pollock contributed to Abstract Expressionism. Moving around an expanse of canvas laid on the floor, Pollock would fling and pour ropes of paint across the surface. One is among the largest of his works that bear evidence of these dynamic gestures. The canvas pulses with energy: strings and skeins of enamel, some matte, some glossy, weave and run, an intricate web of tans, blues, and grays lashed through with black and white. The way the paint lies on the canvas can suggest speed and force, and the image as a whole is dense and lush—yet its details have a lacelike filigree, a delicacy, a lyricism.

The Surrealists' embrace of accident as a way to bypass the conscious mind sparked Pollock's experiments with the chance effects of gravity and momentum on falling paint. Yet although works like One have neither a single point of focus nor any obvious repetition or pattern, they sustain a sense of underlying order. This and the physicality of Pollock's method have led to comparisons of his process with choreography, as if the works were the traces of a dance. Some see in paintings like One the nervous intensity of the modern city, others the primal rhythms of nature."

Top: Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). One: Number 31, 1950. 1950. Oil and enamel on unprimed canvas, 8' 10" x 17' 5 5/8" (269.5 x 530.8 cm).

Left: Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). Full Fathom Five. 1947. Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, key, coins, cigarettes, matches, etc., 50 7/8 x 30 1/8" (129.2 x 76.5 cm).

The other observation I made is that science principles and discoveries have played certain underlying role in the Artists' mind when coming up with their art.  Like mentioned here "Gravity" (Einstein, Quantum Physics, Theory of Relativity, etc. come up often in others' work, especially in the exhibition I saw later at the Guggenheim Museum).

Learn More about Jackson Pollock.

Jasper Johns - Flag 1954-55

This painting has been used by many as an icon of American patriotism.  What is interesting to me is the underlying layer of the painting that comprise bits and pieces of newspaper columns ...and in a way encapsulating the moment in time when the Artist created this piece. You can see these pieces when you zoom in on the picture.

Andy Warhol in Primary Colors

Here's the description from the MOMA website....


"I don't think art should be only for the select few," Warhol believed, "I think it should be for the mass of the American people." Like other Pop artists, Warhol used images of already proven appeal to huge audiences: comic strips, ads, photographs of rock-music and movie stars, tabloid news shots. In Campbell's Soup Cans he reproduced an object of mass consumption in the most literal sense. When he first exhibited these canvases (in 1962) —there are thirty-two of them, the number of soup varieties Campbell's then sold—each one simultaneously hung from the wall, like a painting, and stood on a shelf, like groceries in a store.

Repeating the same image at the same scale, the canvases stress the uniformity and ubiquity of the Campbell's can. At the same time, they subvert the idea of painting as a medium of invention and originality. Visual repetition of this kind had long been used by advertisers to drum product names into the public consciousness; here, though, it implies not energetic competition but a complacent abundance. Outside an art gallery, the Campbell's label, which had not changed in over fifty years, was not an attention-grabber but a banality. As Warhol said of Campbell's soup, "I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch everyday, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.". More about Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe.

And that was my 15 minutes of FAME....Remember my name. FAME, I'm gonna live forever.....

Dancing with Matisse

This is the famous Dance...that "in March 1909, Matisse received a commission from the Russian merchant Sergei Shchukin for two large decorative panels, Dance and Music (now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg). This painting was made quickly as a compositional study for Dance, which was intended to hang on a staircase landing at Shchukin's Trubetskoy Palace, in Moscow. The figure at left appears to move purposefully, while the other dancers seem to float weightlessly. The momentum of their movement breaks the circle as the arm of the foreground dancer reaches out. Dance, Matisse once said, evoked "life and rhythm."  According to some, when this long-awaited painting arrived, it was not too well received.  However, it became one of Matisse's most famous work and deemed by many an icon for feminism movement.

Normally, I don't particularly like Matisse's style but some pieces are captivating...like this series of bronze sculptures of Jeannette.(Henri Matisse. (French, 1869-1954). Jeannette (I). Issy-les-Moulineaux, early 1910).  I love the minimalist display on a blank wall.  It's no secret that presentation of art (and everything for that matter) is equally important as the object of display itself.... Can we quote Marshall McLuhan..."Medium is the Message"?

Picasso - The Musicians

This is one of my Picasso's favorites as it's less violent and yet still passionate (if I may use the terms) compared to his earlier pieces... I can feel a sense of calmer disposition in the Artist... the same way I feel at this stage in life.  Not that one becomes dispassionate advancing in years, but the passion is based on a more stable foundation, I think.

"The three musicians and dog conjure a bygone period of bohemian life, enjoyed here by Picasso in the guise of a Harlequin flanked by two figures who may represent poet–friends of the artist's: Guillaume Apollinaire, who was recently deceased, and Max Jacob. The patterned flatness of the work is derived from cut–and–pasted paper, and stands in stark contrast to the sculptural monumentality of Picasso's Three Women at the Spring, also painted in the summer of 1921."

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Three Musicians. Fontainebleau, summer 1921. Oil on canvas, 6' 7" x 7' 3 3/4" (200.7 x 222.9 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. © 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

New York Meseum of Modern Art (MOMA)

Never thought I would appreciate modern art, but I found myself loving them more and more... It's like looking through a revolving mirror that shows gradual change of societies' mood and tone.  The posts after this are some of my favorites.

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Note: Van Gough's The Olive Trees

Test Music Tool

This is a test to embed music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi! I'm another Nikon D40 Newbie - Wide Angle and Tips and Tricks

I just got a D40 with an 18-55mm and 55-200 kit.  I'm also thinking of getting a very wide lens in the near future -- Nikkor 12-24 AF-S is very expensive.  I saw some members suggested a sigma 10-20 mm.

My question is would that lens work with the D40 but we have to use manual focus?

And I would love to hear more tips and tricks from you all out there.

Thanks.

Earth Hour 2008

Link

I knew about it but forgot about it totally. It's a great initiative and we all should lend a hand so we and our future generations can cherish this beautiful blue planet for centuries to come.  Since Earth Day is coming up this month.  It's a good reminder.  Let's help in every which way we can.

New York Day 1- Carnegie Deli

We arrived at JFK airport on April 3rd and took a cap to Park Central Hotel in lower Manhattan.  The hotel is conveniently located across from Carnegie Hall, and in walking distance from Columbus Circle and Central Park.  I know that it was going to rain the next day so we took a horse carriage with Jack our local guide and Bee Bee the horse -- who loved carrot.

Then we went to New York's famous Carnegie Deli -- which has been favorites of celebrities and not-so-celebrities alike.  The place didn't look much but has the BEST cheesecake!!! and Gigantic pastrami sandwich -- (beware, they charge 3 dollars for sharing)... But it's worth a visit.  We ended up going back 3 times. 

My Trip to Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, and Grand Canyon

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I went to Las Vegas in July 2007 with Charlie and met up with Joop and P'Wan. I had resisted going there for a long time thinking that it would be one of those tacky places... but boy!!! Am I wrong...We saw a few shows..having great fun. We also went to Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, the Meteo Crater on Route 66 in Arizona, and Sedona. I would love to go back to Arizona again... Perhaps not in summer.

mind . body . soul

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I created this blog at one time as part of my perpetual struggle with weight loss and shared health and mental balance tips. I kind of abandoned it for a while. Perhaps I will pick it up again if I have a group to share tips with.

I'm Off To New York City Tomorrow!!!!

I'm off to the City that never Sleeps tomorrow Yippy!!!!.