Foot and Fire

My futile search for the Khalil Gibran memorial sculpture in the East Village of New York, which was supposed to be a Hand of God based on the cover page of The Prophet and said to be designed by Lebanese artist Rudy Rahme, left me with a feeling that I broke a wing. The sculpture was said to have launched last year to commemmorate the 100th years of Gibran as a published author.  The first photo is of me with the new building where the apartment of Gibran once stood at 51 W 10th Street. Farther ahead is the St Mark's Church in-the-bowery, the 2nd oldest church in New York, which was said to be the location of the sculpture. I circled the church and did not find any. The garden beside the church was locked but when I tried to peep inside, there was no sign of the sculpture.  Maybe it was not materialized as intended by the @khalilgibrancollective. I Sent messages to the Khalil Gibran Collective and the office of the @stmarksinthebowery and shall update for their re...

Fangirling, if you describe me when I saw Marc Chagall's The Village and I at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on my second week in New York City. I went to MoMA to see Van Gogh's Starry Night, which is the Museum's star masterpiece if I must rate it according to the flock of tourists at a time fighting for a spot to take a photo with it and the existing articles on it in the web each time MoMA is mentioned. But Lo and behold, I saw a masterpiece that never left me from the time I learned about it in our Humanities Class in college. I thought I have to go to a Jewish museum before I can see this piece. Modern art sometimes does not hold one's breath because it lacks the mystery and the depth of chiaroscuro. One example is this piece. It is colorful, has geometry in it which suggests that the piece must be logical but it is not logical given how the objects are drawn which shows that it is dreamy and tells a story. When I read one e.e. cummings poem, I thought...

One of the dubbed tourist attractions which I could not bring myself to excitedly go was the Ground Zero or the place where the 9/11 happened. It is now a park complex with museums on the side, the Oculus World Trade Center and the National September 11 Memorial Museum.  Above and below are the photos of the site where the names of the victims were written. Since I visited a week before 9/11, I found many flowers beside the names.  Actually, I was hesitant to really go over the place since the atmosphere is sad, really sad, like in any site where death occurred, and also I felt that the grieving families or the surviving families should be given their own space for privacy despite the fact that 9/11 happened in 2001 or roughly 21 years ago. I felt my presence was an intrusion.  But still i passed by twice without going inside the museum. I also felt that my presence should be a reminder that we are humans with the same aspirations and no one deserved to d...