bring on the culture

I started to find my first cultural events in the city. There's not nearly as many events here as NYC but you don't need many to keep busy every night of the week.

After a long and frustrating walk, we finally found the the NCPA (National Center for Performing Arts). I am glad we stuck it out to find the place because I know I will return often. It's a bunch of nondescript concrete buildings but they house a number of free galleries, theater spaces and film screening rooms.We quickly passed through a photo exhibition by a prominent medical doctor of mountains and flowers in the American West. Unfortunately, his lack of training showed through clearly but he shadowed us through part of the gallery so we ooohhhed and aahhedd appropriately.

Then we caught the film that brought me here in the first place, "Dali in New York", a documentary about the great painter's largest retrospective in 1965. I disliked the documentary for its annoying surrealism (I know, I know, it's Dali, of course its surreal but this director did not have his touch). I still enjoyed seeing the maniac and his entourage in person. He always traveled with a black flute player, a man with a gigantic gold eye patch that would randomly read aloud from anything in a loud voice, a sycophant (not that Dali needed one), a man with a pet ocelot always around his neck, a young guy Dali believed to be his reincarnated dead brother (oh, to have been that kid) and a psychological warfare specialist from WWII. He never stopped creating various plays in the street and organizing surreal photo opportunities at the drop of a hat. We watched him get into a bath tub full of money with an ocelot sniffing at his head while someone cracked an egg full of ants on his face. What a guy. Unfortunately, it pained me greatly to hear him call Franco "the smartest living politician". Here's the man himself on What's My Line:



The same theater has a Jackson Pollock movie soon and I found a film club that will meet once a week to show movies from around the world. Now, that I have a cell phone to call them, I'm signing up today. It's starting to feel a little bit like home. Now all I need to do is find a house that's not the Salvation Army.