The Gates

Maybe the administration can sense me going over the edge. Yesterday I totally went "off" on a student who threw a paper wad in my classroom. (I picture myself becoming the "animated" Galadriel.) The room goes totally silent as I rise up with unearthly power and rage, and when it is done I am in an altered state, totally depleted. The students slide out of the room, trying to be inconspicuous. Could that be why "they" approved my request for three extra days during mid-winter break? I am so fucking happy!

So from February 17-23 I will be in NYC, visiting AJ and Moe and hanging out in Central Park experiencing The Gates and exploring and thinking and...whatever else comes my way.

About The Gates:

Christo & Jeanne-Claude's works are entire environments, whether they are urban or rural. The artists temporarily use one part of the environment. In doing so, we see and perceive the whole environment with new eyes and a new consciousness.

The effect is astounding. To be in the presence of one of these artworks is to have your reality rocked. You see things you have never seen before. You also get to see the fabric manifest things that cannot usually be seen, like the wind blowing, or the sun reflecting in ways it had not before.

The effect lasts longer than the actual work of art. Years after every physical trace has been removed and the materials recycled, original visitors can still see and feel them in their minds when they return to the sites of the artworks.

There is no other way to describe the feeling of that effect other than to say it is magical.

Christo and Jeanne-Claudes' website