Yayoi Kusama

It is not so often that we have the opportunity to witness an exhibition featuring a wide range of works from the ever fascinating Yayoi Kusama. It is amazing to think she now is 80 but continues to be on such a creative and groundbreaking roll. But that said, she now has been this way for decades. Obsessed with dots, repetition, pattern and aggregation. It came as a shock a few months back while visiting a gallery in Darwin when I discovered the work of a 'modern' aboriginal artist using dots in her painting entitled Hail Storm in practically the same way Yayoi is in works like The Moment of Regeneration. From aboriginal Art, to New York through Japan and back to Australia. And it is unlikely these two Artists are even aware of each other's work. In the meantime, you still have time to go to Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art since the exhibition entitled Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years still runs until the 8th of June. A very rare opportunity.

Rent-a-Car

I do not own a car so I rent one every time I need one. In the end I believe it is probably much cheaper than owning one. First of all, I get a new car for each trip. Usually they are quite new and only have a few kilometres on the odometer. Secondly, I am not worried about where to park it when I am not using it. To drive from Washington to New York we rented a Prius since they seem to be quite popular over there. Why is that people continue to use normal cars? Hybrids are so fuel efficient. It might not be the definitive solution but at least you can guess that it is a real progress.
On our way back from the countryside, we had a little Opel. In contrast, cars in France continue to use extremely polluting Diesel fuel (which you rarely see anywhere else in the world except for trucks). For the recorded story, it was filled with the wrong fuel and we got stuck at the fuel station after realising the mistake (we had hopefully not started the engine). Not an experience I recommend to anyone on a Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere in France.

The times, they are a-changing...

After a stop in Philadelphia yesterday giving us just enough time to sample the famous local Philly Cheesesteak and to witness the snow that felt overnight here we are back in New York. Always a delight to visit even though the signs of the recession are everywhere to remind us that the times are far from being fantastic. How about saving 1 USD at Gray's Papaya? We actually preferred to brave the cold front and walk through the streets of ever welcoming Greenwich Village.

Smithsonian Institution

Museums, museums, museums. Apart from all the governmental bodies, Washington houses tons of museums. All of them are free. There is so much to see. After a nice start through the Eastern Market and more crab cakes and grits we headed back to the National Mall to explore the Sculpture Garden, the Natural History Museum with all the kids and families and finally the Hirshhorn Museum for some great Contemporary Art. Visiting museums is a highly tiring activity of course, so we ended up resting and warming ourselves around a nice American meatloaf in one of Washington's popular hangouts, Busboys and Poets. A nice cosy hip place without the attitude.

Washington DC, Day Two

It is always strange to see for real those monuments you have been seeing since you have been a kid. The White House is probably the most ‘moving’. Lincoln Monument is somehow quite touching and Capitol Hill cannot fail to impress. Washington probably is a boring city in the long run but the it boasts a few amazing features like the National Mall (you will surely have seen it crowded with about 2 million people a couple of days ago during Obama’s historical speech). The National Mall is bordered by incredible free museums all administered by the Smithsonians. You could easily spend days and weeks exploring all the Art and education on offer.

Obama-nia

The inauguration came and went. Washington is back to quiet mode or so it seems. A good time to visit the city really. It is amazing to see all the Obama advertising everywhere in the streets and in the shops. Even places like Starbucks fly Obama flags. It is very bizarre. Very extreme. I can’t imagine restaurant or café chains flying Sarkozy (or any other politicians) flags in France.

Goodbye and see you again!

Over this trip we have been blessed by a constant beautiful weather oscillating between 20 and 30 degrees (celcius). The skies have shown their best colours and we incredibly witnessed the first snow of the season over the Grand Canyon during the only cold experience of the trip. We witnessed the most amazing fire red sunset over the Colorado valley in Blythe and yesterday evening the sun waved us goodbye over Venice Beach (above picture). The West Coast definitely is an enjoyable place to live in (if you can forget about the earthquake threats ans raging fires).

The Getty Museum

The Getty museum is just an 'out of this world' place. I had never visited it before but you really have to witness it to believe it. Despite the controversy on the ownership of some of the Art pieces on display (after the previous curator was arrested for trafficking) you can only be impressed by its collection of European Arts and Antiquities. But what can be even more amazing than the pieces themselves is both its location overlooking Los Angeles and offering a 360 degrees view over the city and the incredible ingenuosity of its architecture where you can clearly feel that every single detail has been carefully studied. It is particularly glowing white under a blue sky (even though the city below is not glowing because of the constant pollution as you can see above).

L.A.

It really is not difficult to guess where we are today. It is also amazing to think that a few hundred miles from here and a couple of days ago we witnessed the first snow of the season since today the weather has been particularly hot and sunny. It is like being in summer again. And those 28 degrees Celcius (82 degrees Fahrenheit as they say here) do not feel anything like 28 hot and and sticky Singapore degrees. They are just perfect! We surely had to do the touristy things from the Chinese Theatre to the Walk of Fame and from Beverly Hills to Malibu. But no celebrity spotting!

Mojave and Joshua Tree National Parks

The first time I heard of the Joshua Tree was thanks to U2 when they issued their timeless masterpiece 'The Joshua Tree' twenty years ago (see the picture here). I then drove through the Joshua Tree National Park on my way from Los Angeles to Las Vegas a few years later. A classic ride. I will be crossing the same park again today but I was amazed to go through a forest of Joshua Trees on my way from Vegas yesterday. I did not know that the biggest 'forest' of joshuas was actually in Mojave Desert. A weird and beautiful sight.

Las Vegas

It is difficult not to be impressed by Vegas. That said, if you are not a gambler, you might find the place boring after 24 hours but you should at least see it once in your life. By day but mostly by night. We could not resist a ride on that crazy rollercoaster at New York New York. We are not too familiar with fairground rides so we definitely thought that it was worth every second. That said, some of those seconds seemed very long and we were happy the ride did not last for hours.

Picture of the Week

Usually Monday is the day where I post my record(s) of the week. If I had to choose some tracks this week it would actually be the trio of singles that have been in my head lately: Flobots 'No Handle Bar', Ladyhawke 'My Delerium' and Esser 'I Love You'. But as I am in the bay area vicinity - and instead of purchasing my usual fix from Piccadilly Records online - I thought it would be more appropriate to post the picture of the great Californian institution that is Amoeba Records. If you find yourself in San Francisco or L.A. please do yourself a favour and visit those places before they disappear...

Snow

After all those past days filled with sun who would have thought so much snow would fall within such a short time. The picture above is not a black and white picture but exactly how it looked like this morning when we woke up. Needless to say that the snow was already starting to melt when the sun decided to appear and while hitting the road we quickly found ourselves under blue skies and autumnal heat again.

Grand Canyon

As Grand as the name suggests! It was impressive the first time I went there some long years back and I continue to be gobsmacked by the majesty of the place. The hike down the South Kaibab trail led us to encounter the famous mule train at the aptly named Ooh-Aah Point. The sun eventually showed its face and we were in for a treat during the whole trek. It is amazing how things quickly changed and it was only a matter of minutes before the first snow of the year decided to fall over the park. It was a magical and sublime moment.

Death Valley

It was a long drive down to the Death Valley but it was worth every minute. We spent the night on the outskirts since the weekenders booked out the only few rooms available in the area and had to return early this morning to make the most of this very unique park. It is the driest and hottest valley in the United States. It is also the lowest with its bottom reaching 85 meters below sea level. This season is probably optimun as the highest we got today was 24°C. In summer the average for both July and August is 46°C which means that you can easily have some peaks well over the fifties. Actually, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the United States was 56.7 °C at Furnace Creek, during a sandstorm in July sometimes in 1913.

yo-SEM-it-ee

Over 4 hours drive from San Francisco, we reached today the northern tip of the Sierra Nevada. The Yosemite park is gorgeous in all seasons but I admit that it is really enjoyable to take advantage of less crowds, cooler temperatures, beautiful blue skies and autumn colours at this time of the year. We did not see any bears as we did not stay long enough to explore the park anyway but we could still feed our eyes and memories on the glorious and classical views over the valley, the Half Dome and El capitan as you can see from the picture above.

Golden Gate

I remember the emotion that ran through my veins the first time I saw the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco over a decade ago. It was like a dream come true. This bridge gloriously stands over the San Francisco bay and its International Orange colour particularly makes it stand out loud and clear against a perfect blue sky. It was an intense pleasure to have the opportunity to return here today and it just confirms the position of this corner of the world in my Top 5 of cities I'd love to live in if I had the choice (up there with Barcelona, Manchester, Tokyo and New York).

Cable Cars

If there is an image that identifies automatically with San Francisco (apart from the Golden Bridge of course) it is the Cable Car coming up or down its steep streets. Even though it is more of a tourist attraction than a public mean of transport used by the locals it remains highly iconic. The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually-operated cable car system in the world.

04 November 2008 (historical)

We could not have picked a better day to land in San Francisco. And what a long day! Crossing the dateline made this very special day last for nearly 48 hours! Unlike France where you have an official projection result at 8 PM revealing the face of the new President on TV, here things are more uncertain and gradual. Therefore, expectations build up and you do not have an immediate explosion of joy but we could feel the happiness growing in the streets. The picture above translates this emotional and blurry moment after that long day that lead us to live such an historical event.

Burn After Reading

Definitely not the best movie ever made and definitely not usually my cup of tea but I have to admit I had a pleasant time watching this new flick from the Coen brothers (O' Brother, Big Lebowski, Fargo, Barton Fink, etc...). It is good to have at least a few directors that do not necessarily fit in your typical Hollywood mould. It is also good to see this great skewer of actors playing offbeat roles. I would certainly recommend this movie if you want to spend a quality popcorn hour and a half (but do not overdose on the popcorns though).