Reading Journal: April 2012

Here comes my reading journal for April… with a little delay in posting:

  • Hot Shots Tips and Tricks for Taking Better Pictures by Kevin Meredith (finished): A pretty good photo book with some very good advice and beautiful pictures.
  • My New York City (German) by James Rizzi & Peter Bührer (finished): Good  New York City guide with loads of great tips.
  • Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!) by George Lois (unfinished): Interesting guide for a creative carreer.
  • The Tao of Muhammad Ali by Davis Miller: The (really interesting and well-written) story about Muhammad Ali's impact on Davis Miller's life. A slightly altered, but basically true story.
  • Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (unfinished): So far this book is about the ordinary day in day out life in a Chicago-based ad agency. Looking forward to finish that one.
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Sunny Easter Day

It was a really lovely day. This morning I've read about snowfall back home in Switzerland. However it was really sunny here and I think thermometers almost reached the 20° C – resp. the 70° F – in New York.

I started the day at the entrance to Central Park at Columbus Circle and spent abour two hours in front of and in the park before I walked over to Fifth Avenue. I went down the packed avenue where a coupla people were dressed up fancy for Easter (was that it, the Easter Parade?) to Grand Central Terminal and on to the Chrysler Building. I finally took some pictures again which I will upload as soon as I get around to it (still gotta put the St. Paddy's Day photos up).

I enjoyed the last rays of the sun with a coffee in Bryant Park, went home to the great neighborhood of the Washington Heights and finished the day in the local Coogan's sports bar with some friends.

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Reading Journal: March 2012

I finished two books, a booklet and a magazine, still didn't finish a photo book and a travel guide. Plus New York's weekly free Village Voice every week.

  • Hot Shots Tips and Tricks for Taking Better Pictures by Kevin Meredith (still unfinished): Same.
  • My New York City (German) by James Rizzi & Peter Bührer (unfinished): Still a lot of good tips.
  • Wrenched by Alex Corporan & Matt Sharkey (finished): Loads of good tips for New York.
  • Speaking with the Angel by Nick Hornby (finished): Most stories were really good, I enjoyed the diverting reading. My favorites were The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, Peter Shelley by Patrick Marber, NippleJesus by Nick Hornby himself, Catholic Guilt  (You Know You Love It) by Irvine Welsh and Walking into the Wind by John O'Farrell.
  • Zwölf Fussballmagazin #28 January/February: Great Swiss football magazine which is published every two months. I bought it back home before I left Switzerland so that I would have something to read about Swiss footie during my time in NYC.
  • Oranje Brillant (translated into German by Kristian Lutze) by David Winner: A book about Dutch football. Or more about football as a part of  Dutch culture and history. Author David Winner did a lot of researching and guessing and drifted off to many other fields such as architecture, music or World War I and II. One of the best books about football I have read.
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Morning Excursion

I got up pretty early on Monday morning and took the train down to Spring Street. After walking through SoHo for a bit I reached my first of that day's goals, the Fay Da Bakery in Chinatown where I had coffee and some pastry. The bakery is pretty small and apparently makes a lot of its money with deliveries.

Anyway I walked on and paid the Eastern States Buddhist Temple a short visit. I dared to be treated with a Chinese back rub which was pretty, in retrospect, not the best choice. Wasn't totally worth the 20 bucks. Doesn't matter, one more thing checked off the to do list. Also I bought Chinese green tea, so another one, check.

I walked on eastwards to the Bowery and then up north where I passed the first ever 7 Eleven I've seen in New York so far. I had some coffee at Think Coffee and walked some more, visited Other Music record store and walked past Washington Square Park to Christopher Street subway station where I took the 1 train back up.

It was another day of discovering another few places in New York. More soon…

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St. Patrick’s Day in New York

Everyone has been speaking of it for days now and yesterday, finally, it was St. Patrick's Day. After seeing it in movies and hearing a lot about it I was getting quite excited to see how it really looks and feels like.

The parade was supposed to start around 11am somewhere near 44th Street on 5th Avenue and going on until around 5pm. I went to Fifth Avenue at noon and got some first impressions of the parade. It was loads of uniformed men walking up one of the most expensive streets in the world. Then there was music, Irish music, lots of bagpipes. Also, many many Irish, American and other flags and banners were carried up Fifth Ave. I watched for a while and took some pictures. Later in the afternoon it got pretty crowded so that one could hardly pass 5th Ave without waiting for half an hour.

All the Irish pubs were packed and people were getting drunk more and more, drinking their beer or vodka or whatever out of McDonald's cups because of the law that prohibits drinking alcohol on the streets.

A bunch of Americans telling you how Irish they are was how a Scottish guy described to me what he expected of St. Patrick's Day in New York.

Some pictures are gonna be up on photo.fabians.ch in a couple of days or weeks.

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Black Keys @ The Garden

Last night I went to the exact opposite kinda show of the Bonaparte show the night before: The Black Keys at the world's most famous arena Madison Square Garden. Even though they'd only announced The Arctic Monkeys as their supporting act for their concert on March 22 but not for last night they appeared to play a gig, too. Apparently this was a very nice surprise.

The concert was completely sold out since days… or rather weeks I guess. Anyway we went to The Garden to give it a try – and it was worth it. We got our tickets for the original price of 65 bucks each. We went it at something past eight when The Arctic Monkeys had already started. The atmosphere was really poor while they played which was partly because lots of people weren't there yet, partly because the light show and sound quality was much worse than in the main show and probably partly because a lot of people didn't know they were gonna play, too. Their music was still great though.

When The Black Keys started their performance the atmosphere in the arena was getting so much better. They performed a very solid show and people seemed to really like what they heard and saw. So did I. The light show and video animations were really nice, best part of it was the two big disco mirror balls at the end. It looked amazing, so many lights projected to the hugeness of The Garden.

So I've finally been in The Garden for the first time. I liked The Garden and I liked the music and i liked the show. But I guess I cannot say that I liked it better than the shows the night before at Mercury Lounge.

Leumund.ch posted about the concert in German, including a video of the encore at the end of the show

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Bonaparte @ Mercury Lounge

Some days ago I checked some venues' concert schedules for the next coupla weeks. So I also checked the upcoming shows at Mercury Lounge in the East Village where I found a familiar name: Bonaparte. Bonaparte is a a Berlin-based rock band whose style is described as visual trash punk on German wikipedia. Lead singer is the Swiss Tobias Jundt who is the only permanent member of the band. I love the band and was amazed that they were coming to play in New York and so I went to Mercury Lounge last night.

I have not been to this venue before so I took the F subway to 2nd Ave station and walked about three blocks, past famous Katz's Deli and Il Laboratorio del Gelato. The location is really great and I loved this place right away. It's quite small which might be part of its greatness. Ten bucks for three bands that night, awesome!

When I arrived the first band called The Zambonis has already started their gig. The Zambonis are six guys from Connecticut wearing hockey jerseys and helmets while playing some kind of hockey trash punk. Definitely not the best voices I've ever heard singing but still quite funny. Oh and they also had a hockey mascot on stage.

After a break UK alternative rock group The Chevin started their short performance. I quite liked their music which apparently is influenced a lot by Muse and probably somewhat by The NationalThe White Lies and Radiohead, too. I'll be looking out for their EP in New York's record stores…

Some minutes after eleven the time had finally come and Bonaparte started their fabulous show. From beginning till end they performed a fantastic circus show. I've seen them playing once at an open-air festival in Switzerland two years ago and loved their performance but I didn't quite expect it to be that extraordinary in a small venue like the Mercury Lounge. I was (and still am) totally amazed. They do not just sing socio-critically but they underline their lyrics with costume changes for almost every song and theatric visual performances. Better than every video clip!

So make sure to check out their website www.bonaparte.cc, go and see their show if you can or buy their music and watch their videos at least.

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Reading Journal: February 2012

My reading in February:

  • Hot Shots Tips and Tricks for Taking Better Pictures by Kevin Meredith (still unfinished): As before.
  • My New York City (German) by James Rizzi & Peter Bührer (unfinished): Beautiful designed and very extraordinary city guide. Good tips and interesting facts plus a pretty city map.
  • Wrenched by Alex Corporan & Matt Sharkey (unfinished): Free booklet with short portraits of people (mostly in the biking and skating scene) living in New York.
  • Speaking with the Angel by Nick Hornby (unfinished): Collection of short stories by some very popular authors in aid of Treehouse, charity that helps autistic children. First two stories were pretty nice.
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Busy

I have been pretty busy in the last few weeks. I feel like I've been in New York for a coupla months instead of some weeks. I still love it here and I'm looking forward to the next few months.

I discovered the weekly left-oriented paper Village Voice which has some really interesting articles in it sometimes.

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First Few Days…

The first few days are past and I'm getting familiar with a lot of stuff. I discovered some nice cafés, shops and other places. Finally bought a US cell phone.

Went to the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) today which was okay. I still prefer the MoMA though since they have more really modern design and photography stuff. Also went to the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Chelsea. They had some pretty amazing pictures by Natalia Fabia exhibited there.

Next is Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center observation deck).

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