Lifenotes #46: September 2024

🎵 Americaaaa fuck yeah 🦅

4 min read

✨ Highlights

  • I went on an excellent trip to the US with my friends Nisha and Rachael. We spent 2 a half weeks between New York, Chicago and New Orleans, and we had a lovely time! (despite the hurricane 🌪️) Some highlights from that:
    • I went to the Guggenheim in New York and it just so happens that their exhibition was from an artist I really like - Jenny Holzer - so that was nice. I also did the 99 percent invisible audio tour and that was excellent.
    • Chicago is a truly stunning city, and I particularly enjoyed the architecture boat tour, this exhibition we saw at the Chicago Cultural Center, and the italian beef I had at Mr. Beef (yes, I waived my veggie-ness for that).
    • In New Orleans we ended up having to spend a couple of days holed up in our apartment because of a hurricane (!!) but thankfully when it hit land it slowed down into a tropical storm. I still managed to eat my body weight in beignets while I was there, and see some lovely jazz at The Spotted Cat and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, the latter in their temporary premises sadly.
  • Thom told me he can’t share custody of Juno anymore, so I need to get ready to become a single dog parent 😅
  • Went to see Jamie XX with my friend Hayden and it was such a good gig! I danced so much.
  • Went to the exhibition launch at Nottingham Contemporary, for their new Donald Rodney exhibition, which is really good.
  • Whenever I get breakfast with my friend Alan at Wired, I always say I could eat another cob, so the other day he challenged me to actually do it, and I’m happy to say I succeeded 💪🏼 2 veggie sausage and special eggs cobs is my current PB.

🎮 Played/Read/Watched

📸 Pics

New York

Collage of pictures from New York: A view of the Manhattan skyline from New Jersey, you can see two of those observations thingys you put coins and look through, and on the right you can see my friends sat on a bench looking at the view; the front of the Guggenheim museum in New York, a massive spiral shaped concrete building; my feet wearing green trainers and in front of them a yellow heart with eyes, painted on the pavement; the inside of one of the atria in the Natural History Museum in New York, a part of the building that looks a lot like a wasp nest in its structure, it’s sort of rough concrete with round windows here and there; a view of the New York Liberties game at Barclays Arena in Brooklyn; me posing in front of the Brooklyn bridge, wearing sunglasses and a flowery top; me again, in front of a bridge in Central Park, on a beatifully sunny day, you can see the lake and the trees in the background, and I’m wearing denim shorts and a black top; my friend Rachael smiling with her cream soda made from scratch at Lexington Candy Shop; a view of the One World Trade Center, with the spiky bits in the foreground; me stood in front of the Barclays Arena, ready for the game; me looking through one of the observation thingys on top of Rockefeller Center; a cool footbridge in the High Line; my friend Rachael doing a silly pose in the Subway, and Nisha’ head is poking out from behind a pillar; the red tree sculpture on the High Line; a cool mural of a hand holding the coiled cable of a landline phone..

Chicago

Collage of pictures from Chicago: The roof terrace of the AirBnb we stayed at in Chicago, it’s a lovely decked terrace with lots of plants and flowers all around; The really beautiful Tiffany's dome at the Chicago Cultural Centre; My friends Nisha, Rachel, and I posing in front of the bean in Chicago on a sunny day; The L train stop for the loop, you can see the rails of the station and you can see some of the tracks behind it; The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, a ridiculous looking vehicle that looks like a hot dog; a view of the river from one of the bridges in Chicago, it’s a really sunny and clear day and you can see all the buildings around it and a few boats in the water; a picture I took of my shadow, you can see my feet and then my shadow in front of them and the slighlt dapples shadow of a tree branch; me posing in front of a canvas of the Chicago Art Institute, the artwork on the canvas is the same as the shirt that I'm wearing, they’re flowers from a Warhol print; a gorgeous old diner in Chicago; a sculpture by Alexander Calder that I spotted while in Chicago, you can see two tall black buildings in the background, and the sculpture is a bright red spider looking thing; my friends and I smiling on the boat for the architecture tour; a view from the water in Chicago, you can see some boats in the foreground and in the background, you can see the cities and trees and a Ferris wheel; my friends and I posing in the reflection of the bean; the front of the Mr. Beef shop; an Italian beef sandwich, a can of Coke and some mozzarella sticks at Mr. Beef.

New Orleans

Collage of pictures from New Orleans: A plate of beignets covered in icing sugar; a big mural in the atrium of the New Orleans airport, a massive rectangular canvas with a tree in it; the sculpture and fountain in front of the New Orleans Museum of Modern Art; a view of Jackson Square in New Orleans, you can see the St Louis Cathedral; a tattoo shop, you can see lots of frames on the walls with different bits of flash, and there's a big mirror with a sign that says tattoo; a picture of a red street car, coming down the track, framed by palm trees; me having a coffee and some more beignets at Café du Monde; the buildings around our apartment, shrouded in fog during the hurricane; my friend Nisha looking up at a house in the French Quarter; the tattoo I got in New Orleans, it's a storm cloud with a thunderbolt coming out of it; a sign that says, sorry, we're dead from the death museum; another red streetcar, this time coming through a park; a piece of street art of a black man singing and holding a trumpet; the preservation hall jazz band logo on stage, and tables of people sat down waiting for them to come on; me while getting my tattoo, you can see my arm and some of the stencil, and you can see the tattoo artist holding the needle..

Back in the UK

Collage of pictures from the UK: A stone bridge over the river Erewash; an artwork by Donald Rodney made out of his x-rays, they're shaped to look like a house and in front of it there’s a doll sat in a chair; a dragon fly resting on a bridge; an overground station in London, and you can see a piece of graffiti on the wall reads ‘the illusion of democracy’; Jamie XX on stage, you can see him stood by the decks and two spotlights on him; me wearing a colourful top I thrifted in New Orleans and a little bit of makeup; Juno, my dog, a black fluffy German shepherd looking upwards at me with pleading eyes; another picture of Juno, looking very silly on the sofa with his belly up and slightly crazy eyes; me and my friend Hayden's dog Jaz, she's a staffy chihuahua cross, so she is quite small and has bat-like ears; Hayden and I at the Jamie XX concert, under a red light; a burger and a plate of fries that is completely covered in Parmesan; a green field on a sunny day; the two breakfast sandwiches that I conquered at Wired; my friend Hayden, smiling sitting across from me at a Mexican restaurant; a disco ball at the Jamie XX concert, shining rays of light everywhere..

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