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October 28, 2007

Why New York is Okay In Spite of Itself

So, this weekend we went to New York. We went for a number of reasons, including business for Matthew, which meant that we got to take the train instead of driving. The reason I mention this is because the #1 reason I dislike New York so much is the part where I have to drive there and often sit in traffic for like 8 hours to get through the @%$#! Lincoln Tunnel, and then I have to pay an arm and a leg to park once I'm there.

Yes. I am one of those philistines who just doesn't like New York. I understand the allure, I get how it could be an exciting place, but for someone who would rather eat mac & cheese and play scrabble in a comfortable and inexpensive domicile than go out for fine cuisine before going to a museum/gallery/event of some sort, then going out for drinks only to return to my tiny cramped apartment surrounded on all sides by concrete, well, you see, New York just isn't the place for me. I like to visit, but generally speaking after two days I'm totally overstimulated and have to sit in a dark room by myself for a few hours to recover.

That being said, I totally enjoyed my trip this time. Part of it involved going to a portfolio review for the Portfolio Center in Atlanta (graduating students come up to show their portfolios in NY in hopes of landing a job) - looking for designers for NCSDO. Matthew and I put on a pretty good show together - we do a lot of back and forth and remember to fill in things that the other forgot etc. There was a lot of great stuff there (I thought, anyway) so we picked up some leads. We'll see...

The other part involved going to meet some folks who will be working on an animated project that I'm doing the illustration for. These guys rocked. Check out their demo reel here. Anyway - while Matthew was talking shop, I got a quick tutorial on how animation and 3D animation works. It is AWESOME. If I could magically become smarter and more patient and go back to school for another 3 years, I would totally want to do this stuff. It's fascinating. And, I guess, tedious. But the end result is really cool.

One of the guys worked on this Sheryl Crow video - have a look, the animation is really awesome (the image quality here really doesn't do it justice, though - there are lots of beautiful washes that don't come through in the low-res) - maybe you've already seen it because it came out a couple years ago and I'm totally lame and never watch TV, but whatever. I love how they retained the illustrative quality in spite of it all being digital. Really really nice stuff. Anyway. After I become an Adobe Certified Master Guru of Adobe, I will then set my sights on 3D animation.

Actually, the trick really isn't just knowing how to make things look 3D and move, you need to know a lot about cinematography and music and timing and all that. All that stuff I'm no good at.

YET.

And, a third part was that I got to see my friend Davey in a play on Broadway, which, incidentally, was all about muscular men running around in skimpy towels.

Anyway. All that was cool. Though, it wasn't what makes New York okay in spite of itself.

What makes New York okay in spite of itself is that while we were on the subway, there were three kids sitting across from us. Probably high school age, kind of hoodlums. Certainly not fancy manhattan high school kids. Anyway, one of them is rooting through her purse looking for lipstick, and pulls out a book and waves it in front of the other two. "You ever read this?" It's "Night" by Elie Wiesel. The other two kids shrug and disaffectedly say "no". The girl shakes her head emphatically back and forth, and says, "I did NOT know Hitler tore apart kids," the other two shrug, and she puts it back in her purse, pulls out her lipstick, and applies generously.

What I love about this is that I would never hear that conversation here on the eastern shore of Maryland. I just wouldn't. But what I love even more is that for all the demonizing we do of Hitler (and justly so), it apparently isn't enough. We actually need to tell kids that not only did he try to wipe out an entire people, he ALSO tried to wipe out their kids at the same time. By TEARING THEM APART. I mean, there's not a single historical figure we hate more than Hitler and yet she was shocked that he was EVEN WORSE than she had imagined. And then, when all that's said and done, you really just want your lips to look plump and radiant, dammit.

I'm back now. And back to work. In my nearly silent, very slow-moving home town. Ah, yes. I do like it here.

Posted by ribbu at October 28, 2007 12:02 PM