New York a la Martin Margiela

Four days in New York and I didn't buy a thing. Yes, I know we're all supposed to be spending to stave off a Thelma and Louise over the Fiscal Cliff.  Bit of an anarchist that's me...I promise to be patriotic and spend from now on.

Me and Pietra on the HiLine

Seen from the HiLine

Budha inflatable at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens

Opa! Greek restaurant with fibreglass clouds

Ralph Lauren, Madison Avenue

Big Nick's, a greasy spoon in Upper West Side; Sumo burgers and jugs of beer

Talking of anarchy, it was a Martin Margiela kind of New York trip. MM is viewed as the most out-there designer, an invisible man refusing to be photographed or interviewed. His style is deconstructing - boots that look like they've been slathered with cement, lapels inside the coat, plexiglas heels and oversized shoulders.

(Most of the world queued overnight for the Martin Margiela - HandM collaboration but no one knew about him in Doha, Qatar where my sister Pietra is currently working, so she snagged a wonderful slope-shouldered coat and two men's shirts - one for her and one for Kevin, which are half workshirt and half tuxedo shirt.)

via

Our trip was so deconstructed that the first day found us on other side of the river in Rockaway, Queens.  The Socrates Sculpture Park there has a 10ft inflatable Budha floating in the river, a 1965 Ford Mustang draped with braids of black hair and a 3ft Virgin Mary made of birdseed. As we walked around it was "Is this art?" "What about this?" but we realised the plentiful dog poop was definitely not.

We were in New York for my sister Pietra's doco Maori Boy Genius screening at the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the Natural History Museum. While Pietra was viewing the dinosaurs she heard that she had won the "Moa" (an extinct 12ft bird) in New Zealand for the best documentary this year. Good on her.

During the screening I met: someone who needed an armed guard while investigating a fraud, someone who bought Modiglianis and wine for the super-wealthy, our friend Angus who runs the business side for Kiss and is a Bafta judge, his lovely wife Jules who is the PT for the New York Ballet,  a staff writer for the New Yorker and a Kiwi performance artist who was being featured at the Saatchi and Saatchi holiday party this week.

Later that evening at a random bar, I was asked that dreaded question...
"So Jody, what do you do?"
"Housewife" I confessed.
"How very, very..."
"Deconstructed?" I ventured.
"Yes!" they enthused, visibly relieved.

Cool stuff:

Noguchi Museum: Known mostly for his triangular tables, this man was the first to make a warehouse his home and carve simple stone sculptures that made sense of the world.

Opa! a Greek restaurant in Astoria with fibreglass clouds, plastic flowers and posters of waterfalls not in Greece. We asked the waitress what we should order. "The snappeeer..." she sighed as if this fish were poetry. Only $13 and it was.

Bollocks:
Afternoon tea at The Carlisle: Two small scones ($15) and club sandwich ($18) which was soggy in the middle and nearing pagoda (curling at the edges) on the outside.

$60 of disappointment at The Carlisle

Sleep No More: A theatrical experience in a hotel?insane asylum? where the audience follows the actors from room to room culminating in a writhing naked dance scene; ergo ram's heads, spurting blood, bobbing boobs and erect penises.  Ergo, deconstructed wank.