Have you ever been to a really good block party?  The kind where you effortlessly fall into conversations with strangers, just because they're in close proximity?  The kind where everyone is walking around with a big goofy smile on their faces?

New York was like that on Sunday afternoon for B. and me, because we went to Central Park to see Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates: Central Park, New York, 1979-2005."  The artists say:

For those who will walk through The Gates, following the walkways, and staying away from the grass, The Gates will be a golden ceiling creating warm shadows. When seen from the buildings surrounding Central Park, The Gates will seem like a golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees and will highlight the shape of the footpaths.

I was prepared for all that; you'd have had to be living in a cave (and I don't believe there are any caves in the city) if you lived in New York City and heard about what The Gates would look like, where it'd be, when it'd be there, who was putting it there, and how long it took for them to get approval to do so.  What I wasn't quite prepared for was how much fun it was to wander the park with thousands of friends I hadn't yet met.  You couldn't move an inch without getting in someone's camera shot, strangers were talking to each other, and yes, we all had big grins.  (Except for the inevitable (in New York, immutable) few curmudgeons:  I heard a couple people grousing about the cost.  Yes, it cost $21 million, no, it didn't come from public money.  I also heard one guy mutter "Why are all these people taking pictures of orange shower curtains?")

We not only saw the gates and the billowing saffron fabric and the crowds of happy-go-lucky New Yorkers (and how often do I get to type that phrase?) , but we got to see the park in a new light.  This marvelous space that we share is getting shaken up and refracted back to us, slightly different, for a mere sixteen days.  When was the last time you really looked at something like this?  On nice days, I often get off the train a couple stops early and walk across the bottom of the park on the way to work.  I'm going to continue to do that, but I suspect that these now-familiar footpaths will take on some new associations.

This isn't a new sentiment, by the way, and it's far from original; I woke up this morning with lines from Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar" running through my head:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The Gates works in much the same way -- temporarily changing the landscape gives us license to look at it differently.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

(My pictures of The Gates are here.)

Comments

[tizzie]

Nice slideshow, Vidiot!

[czeltic girl]

Great pix. Thanks for sharing.