That one tree in NYC

Time is moving way too fast. Does anyone else think that? I can't believe it's December already. Sigh.

NYC is all abuzz today because it's that time again. The day the Rockefeller Center's tree gets all lit up.

I am NOT dealing with the throngs of people today. Been there and done that a few years ago. So to regurgitate an old post, here's a photo of my husband and I during the tree lighting.



A few years ago I did happen to walk by the center while the tree was still all boxed up. Makes me wonder how they transport the massive tree?

Housing Works Loot

Remember earlier this month when I went to the Housing Works Street Fair? Well, here's some photos from the day.

I love Crosby Street because it's so old school New York with cobbled streets (make for fun walking...I always trip):

I also love all the signs. Like the Live. Work. Create. and the Trucks Must Keep Off This Sidewalk:

The further downtown you go in New York, the more canyon-y feeling you get with the narrow streets.

My method for getting to the books is to sneak in behind the tents. You have to maneuver around the poles and tons of empty boxes on the sidewalk but it's worth it to actually be able to reach the books:

While I wanted to get there earlier in the day, there really isn't a bad time to go because they keep opening more boxes and replenishing the stacks. You never know what you're going to find:

And finally, here's my loot. My wonderful husband helped me lug these around for the rest of the day. So sweet. Oh, and he got a few CDs too.

While we were out and about we popped over to Brooklyn to check out an Etsy sponsored craft fair. I didn't buy anything but it was pretty fun to check out all the awesome crafters and their wares. Most had business cards for their Etsy sites.I'm glad Robb was wearing red that day or I might have lost him in the crowd.The fair was held around this park and in the middle of it all, a soccer (or football for you international readers) game was going on. After wandering around for a while and enjoying the rare June sun, Robb told me it was beer-thirty and so we headed for the nearest dive for a pint. This place (can't remember the name...something with alligator in the name?) gives out free cheese pizzas with your pint. Weird but yummy.
Hope you enjoyed photos of my fair day!

Carnegie Hall and Pink Martini

My husband wanted to surprise me with tickets to a favorite band of mine, Pink Martini. They were supposed to be an early anniversary (our 2nd!) gift. But then he realized that they were on a day when he was going to be out of town for a fishing trip with the buddies. Darn. So I went with Rachel because we are both big fans.

It was at Carnegie Hall, a venue I've never been to before. How exciting! We went after work so I didn't have my camera with me. But here's a photo from wikipedia of the inside:
Isn't it gorgeous!

And Pink Martini was great. They have a huge group:
Their lead singer, China Forbes, has an amazing voice and a great stage presence.
I was introduced to Pink Martini by a good friend of mine who bought me their second CD. She has great taste in music and said it just sounded like something I'd like.


Here's a video on one of my favorite songs. Not that great quality since it's live.


Here they are on David Letterman.


This is a great song too and only music video I could find of theirs:

Housing Works Fair

Happy Friday everyone! It's raining (again) here in the City but hopefully this weekend will be nice and sunny.

For all you in the NYC area, Housing Works is having a street fair tomorrow. You might remember my jaunt last year to the street fair and the haul I got. Seriously...dollar books people...and records, CDs, clothes, etc. Love it

AND Housing Works is an amazing place. 100% of profits go to aid the homeless and those with AIDS. How amazing is that.

And I'm posting this photo I took last year in the bookstore just because I love it. I swear that lady posed just for me (or I'd like to think she did).

Light Up That Tree!

Ok, so I think tonight's the night that the famous Rockefeller Center tree gets lit up (with eco-friendlier LED lights). My husband and I briefly debated on going but then thought better. One reason: crowds..no hordes of people.

Last year I had to go because Rockefeller Center is just around the corner from where I work so it just seemed like a waste not to go. My husband's co-worker and boyfriend joined us as well and he found us a great spot to watch the tree. We seriously couldn't get any closer.

So, because I am not going this year I thought I'd post a few photos from last year. And just a note: the tree is HUGE! There's even a whole blog/website just for the tree!

Before the tree is lit:

And after:

Turner at the Met

The J.M.W. Turner exhibit had been going on at the Metropolitan Museum of Art all summer long and I kept bugging my husband that I wanted to go see it. I told him a little bit about Turner and then showed him some pictures online and he was interested in seeing it as well. So by and by we finally made it to the exhibit...the last day of the exhibit. Actually the last hour of the last day of the exhibit. Have I mentioned that my husband and I tend to be late...to everything? :)

So here's some fun pictures I took through our whirlwind tour of J.M.W. Turner. I didn't take any photos at the beginning (and inside they don't let you take photos) but I did snag this as we were leaving with the mass rush of people (photo is a bit blurry because people didn't like it if you stopped during the flood gate out doors):

But then I did stop to take some photos once we were outside:

We then decided to take a walk around the back towards Central Park. Right behind the building is this running/biking trail...that's my husband on the left:Also behind the museum is one of Cleopatra's Needles. I've seen all three of them now (London, Paris, New York). They actually don't have anything to do with Cleopatra but oh well. They are Ancient Egyptian obelisks and it's sad to see the heiroglyphics being worn away in our humid climate.

For more information on J.M.W. Turner, you can check out one of my favorite blogs, Art Blog by Bob or the image gallery here.

And here's just a couple of my favorite paintings (taken from Internet, hope no one minds):

This one's called The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October 1834, 1835

I think it's pretty cool how he went about painting this, capturing the color as Parliament was actually burning in London.

I also loved his night paintings. Here's just one:

This one's called Fishermen at Sea and is really impressive close up. He did a lot military, naval, seascape paintings. I first knew him from his watercolors but I was surprised how much he worked with oil. And he changed styles later on too. He had a lot of detailed paintings but then moved into the types of paintings I liked better. Like this one (I don't recall if this one was at the exhibit or not):

This one's called Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway

I feel like I can almost hear and feel the noise and motion of the train, the smoke and steam.

Next time I will make sure that I have more than an hour to browse around and maybe rent one of those headsets. :)

Book Fair Loot

Remember from this post that the Housingworks Book Fair was going on last week. Well even though it was a rainy soggy weekend, we got out and went to SoHo and checked it out. It was pretty crowded with just tons of open boxes of books. You really had to just shove right in and get to browsing. They had books, VHS, CDs, records...it was really quite the selection.




Here's a close up. Ahem....please excuse the Calvin Klein add in the background.After my arms got too sore carting around all my loot we checked out. My husband even found a hardback Caleb Carr book, one on Shackleton, a growing plants indoors book (we are thinking of doing window tomatoes and a herb garden), and a CD. Everything was a dollar so we walked out with $14 dollars worth of stuff.

Here's my loot:

I found two books for my Egyptian Book Challenge:

When We Were Gods: A Novel of Cleopatra by Colin Falconer

The Empire of Darkness: A Novel of Ancient Egypt by Christian Jacq

A hard copy of Cold Mountain to go with my hard copy of Thirteen Moons which I adored.

Two novels I've been trying to win on other people's blog contests:

Guernica by Dave Boling

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

And the others were just random ones that I've been wanting to read. Except Sovereign which just looked good and I grabbed it.

If you missed the book fair, no worries. Housingworks Bookstore and Cafe is so cool and is open year round. I grabbed a cup of coffee and browsed around. I would have stayed longer but my better half was getting restless so I will have to come back some other time. I know they are having a pretty big sale this weekend.

I mean seriously...this is what I want my library to look like in my house someday. Well, without the people posing for me :)

Book Fair for a Cause

I found out about a cool book fair which is happening this Sunday, September 28 . Here's the blurb from the NY Times:

Not only does Housing Works 4th Annual Open Air Book Fair have more than 10,000 books, records CDs and DVDs priced at $1 each, there will also be a $20 per bag “all you can stuff” sale of clothing from the thrift shops. Plus food from local restaurants like Noho Star and Puck Fair and beer from Sixpoint Craft Ales! Pedestrians only on Sunday; worthwhile charity any day of the week.

Housing Works, located in Soho (South of Houston Street) has a Used Book Cafe which, according to their website, has 45,000 used, new, and rare books and records. Wow!

AND the best part is that 100% of profits go to Housing Works, a non-profit that provides services for the homeless in NYC living with HIV and AIDS.

I haven't been there before so I'll let you know how it goes. And if you are in the area, check it out!

***NOTE: It's dumping buckets of rain today in NYC and is supposed to ALL weekend. So I hope it's not outdoors and/or canceled!!!!

NYC Waterfalls

The other day my husband and I had time to kill so we decided to try and catch a water tour of the NYC Waterfalls Art Exhibit by Olafur Eliasson. But alas we made it too late and it was all booked. But where we were sitting from the South Street Seaport we could see the four falls. Check them out!

Pier 35 Waterfall behind the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge:
Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall with the Water Taxi in front:
Brooklyn Piers Waterfall near the Brooklyn Promenade:
Random shot of the Brooklyn Promenade (remember from this post I was engaged there!):
Governor's Island Waterfall near that white building (still haven't figured out what that is...do you know?):
And here's me just playing with my camera with the Brooklyn Bridge Waterfall:

I hope you enjoyed the NYC Waterfall Tour!
Tour Information is available from this NY Times Article

Other related Amanda adventures in this area of NYC can be found at this post

Good Music Good Food

As summer wraps up I am starting to read less and get a bit ansy. I know it will go away once fall and winter set in. There is nothing better than curling up at a favorite coffee shop, watching the snow flakes wisk around outside, and read a book.

So I will try and post some of the fun NYC things we've been doing in the meantime.

A few weekends ago my husband and I met a couple friends out and headed to the Blues BBQ which was at Pier 54 and W. 14th Street. It was fun walking past some of the old meat packing district shops. As it was a hot and sunny day, I couldn't imagine the place as it was back then...all stinky with butcher shops. Now they are all designer clothing shops and funky little bars and clubs. But it's got a great old-time industrial feel for it. Here's the entrance to the pier and Blues BBQ fest:
Up and down the pier there were stand selling yummy smelling BBQ. There were stands for the following yummy NYC BBQ joints: Brother Jimmy’s BBQ, Dallas Jones Bar-B-Que, Dinosaur Bar B Que and Mara’s Homemade. Here's us standing in line for the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. I love the guy sharpening and cleaning his huge knife:
Mmmm....and here's our haul. The ribs were my husband's while the brisket sandwich was mine.
It was a beautiful night and I loved watching the colors change as the sun went down.
And I had to get a picture of the pig hanging in this stand. Don't worry it wasn't a real pig:
With our bellies full and satiated we maneuvered up to the stage and sat and watched an awesome performance from the Alexis P. Suter Band. Boy she can wail and put on a good performance. She had the whole crowd riled up and clapping (some dancing) along.

I snapped one last picture before we headed home. That's the Empire State Building all lit up in the background.
Hope you enjoyed our little BBQ/Blues fest! For other good NYC BBQ events, check out my post on the Big Apple BBQ.