A cake from Wal-Mart. It's an old photo and I may have even linked to it before. I came across it again today and it made me giggle.
and this:
i now have a twitter account. come on, you should do it to. don't you want to know what i am doing all day long?
On the second day, we got up early and went to the Contemporary Art Museum. The space is small but the work was pretty good. This girl was my favorite of the show. We walked around the loop area for a bit after that. I tried to spend some money, but I didn't find anything I couldn't live without. We had lunch at Fitz's where they brew and bottle their own root beer in the dining room. We then headed to the art museum. Of course, I forgot my camera. It is a really great museum. Big but not overwhelming. There was an exhibit of quilts from around the world that was probably my favorite. The permanent collection (especially the mummies) is broad and really impressive. Oh, and did I mention that all of the city owned attractions are free?
After resting at the hotel for a bit (so much walking!), we walked to a little place called the Broadway Oyster Bar. I fell in love with this place. The dining room is an enclosed patio with a tree growing in the middle of it. It's dirty, the music is loud and the food is great. We had raw oysters followed by really yummy Cajun food. We tried to go bowling at this place but it was just too busy. Really great space though. The best bowling alley I have ever seen. My mom would have loved it.
Yesterday, we
As beautiful as the arch is in photographs, it is stunning in person. So big and shiny! It is so great to be driving around the city and see it peeking out from behind the other buildings. It is unlike anything I have ever seen.
The view from the top is great. They have the walls slanted so you are literally laying on your stomach looking down 600 feet. Once you get up there, you realize what a feat of engineering it is. It really does not seem like that thing should be standing.
Then, to the zoo!!! I have not been to a zoo in so long. The animals
All in all, it was a great trip. It was my first long drive with my new car (we even drove past the place where my old car decided to die). I don't know if we will end up in St. Louis but I feel like I could live there, for sure. It really is part southern and part mid-western. Anywhere you go for dinner has free music, the people are great and the city is really beautiful. They have managed to keep the old parts of the city in good shape while adding new. There are tons more photos here.
i've been seeing this link all over the internet for the past couple of days. you have to watch it all the way through. i assume that they have trained the elephant to do this...right? BUT STILL!
Check out this crazy animal robot thingy. Be sure to watch the whole thing...no matter how much it may haunt your dreams.
everyone please cross your fingers for me.
Been a while,huh? Well, first I got the flu, then some stomach bug, then a migraine. It's been a long couple of weeks.
But, I am happy to report that yesterday we had a beautiful day here, almost 60 degrees! It's so funny to see everyone freak out. People were wearing shorts and flip flops yesterday and there is hardly any snow left on the ground. It's this time of year that Iowa City does not seem so bad. However, I'm not gonna let it trick me this year. I'm out of here no matter what.
On that note, Ian and I are taking a trip to St. Louis in a couple of weeks to check out the city and see if it is somewhere we might like to live. A little bit southern, a little bit midwestern. So, if any of the three of you who read this thing know anything about the city, now is the time to speak up. Good restaurants? Things to see?
Probably inspired by the weather, yesterday Michelle and I went to the University Art Museum to see the new exhibit. It is VOOM portraits by Robert Wilson. Basically, he has made video portraits of famous actors, musicians, animals and others. Some are pretty straight forward portraits, only in video. The animals were great.
Some are a little (or a lot) more stylized. You can watch the Brad Pitt portrait here. If you don't think the technique is interesting, at least you get to see Brad Pitt in his underwear. I remember thinking in grad school that I wish there was a way to make paintings that were 5 seconds long. The same with photographs. Sometimes, the still image just does not capture what it was you saw. Or a finished painting would be more interesting if you could see the process leading up to the final image. Wilson has found a way to make these beautiful moving images without making them seem like the hundreds of bad video art installations that you normally see when you go to a museum. He finds a way to reference painting, photography and video while creating his own medium in the process.
better description and more images here.
