Today is New Year's Day. In keeping with my desire to have a good year, a truly good year (as though there is anything about that I can control), I wanted to keep last night as low key as possible. Drinking a bit of the good stuff at home with friends while ridiculing a truly stellar 80s movie was the ideal way to spend New Year's Eve. And the best part about that, no debilitating exhaustion and only a very faint hangover.
I had made plans to start the year by doing something fun. And yes, I'm aware of how stupidly symbolic New Year's Day is but it must be all that Mayan blood in me that ascribes significance to dates and numbers and beginnings and ENDS (boo hoo hahahaha 2012'ers.) and no matter what is going on in my life, this day feels like a new beginning. So I made plans to visit one of my favorite places in the city, the American Museum of the Moving Image. Amazingly I hadn't been since a huge renovation had taken place what with me no longer living in walking distance from it. That fact, coupled with the Jim Henson exhibition going on right now made the visit the perfect thing to do today. I went with a group of friends, my brother and sister and we had a great time. We've been having so many days of spring like weather this winter that I found myself feeling that same sense of optimism I feel every time the first few warm days come around at the beginning of spring. Well, optimism mixed with dread. Though the dread may be able attributable to my hangover. Yes, sometimes my hangovers only manifest in a steady sense of faint dread. There have been times when I wake up hungover with zero physical symptoms but rather a pressing knowledge that something is out there, causing something terrible to happen. What? Is that weird?
Anyway despite that nonsense, I found the renovations they did at the AMMI a bit odd. I don't know if they intended to do this but they made the whole building so very modern in style with white, smooth and clean surfaces everywhere as well as some rooms dedicated to slants and angles and corners but all this glossy bright white. It was a bit strange to me since the museum used to be so dark and more akin to what I associate with film going and watching. I suppose it brings the new with the old. The collection on the 2nd and 1st floors stayed pretty much the same (thankfully, as I fell madly in love with their massive display of old Hollywood fan magazines when I first saw it). The Jim Henson exhibit was incredible. The Muppets are a part of me and by extension, Jim Henson's life work felt so nostalgic for me. Me and a about a million others. My sister sat next to a woman in one of the many screenings attached to the exhibit who had tears streaming down her face. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel teary seeing image after image seemingly projected straight from my childhood. For those in the NY metro area, I'd definitely recommend that exhibit and the newly designed museum. Oh and also, there may be a photo floating around of me dubbing my voice over that of Sugar Kane from Some Like it Hot. One of the more hilarious things to happen today.
We then had a lovely lunch and I came home for a final decompression before life carries on. I made the mistake of watching "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" this evening. I call it a mistake not because it is not a superbly acted, beautifully crafted film, it is. But rather because the film is incredibly depressing and anxiety ridden. Cringing is the natural reaction while watching these poor souls interact. But good Lord could Burton and Taylor act. And Sandy Dennis is mesmerizing with her idiosyncrasies. I kept wanting her to repeat her lines just so I could study her. Anyway, that film kind of put me through the ringer so I'm sitting here updating my blog because it is something I'd like to do more often this year, if no other reason than to keep track of my memories. Especially ones of really great days like today. So there you have it.
I did make a whole host of resolutions, some typical, some philosophical, all utterly doable. Because it is today, I just know I'll do them all. Rather, if I don't record them in here, I'll likely do them. There is no logic to that but I know it is true.
Happy New Year everyone!
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