Thursday in the Park with Nadia

My friend Nadia and I had a really nice time in Central Park today. We went to see Janet Cardiff's art excursion, "Her Long Black Hair", which is this audio tour/art thing that's attracting quite a crowd. There was an hour wait when I got arrived but because so many people took off (who wants to wait an hour on a beautiful day like today?) we only waited a few minutes. I wasn't sure what it was about but I love walks and Nadia tends to have her finger on the pulse of interesting things (to mangle a metaphor), so I figured I'd give it a go.

I give it an A+ (105%!) for concept, a C for execution. You're given a CD player, some headphones and a packet of pictures and you just follow the directions on a tour around the park, listening to the narrator/artist ramble on about this woman in the photos. Sounds cooler than it was. It was really fun to walk through areas I'd never seen (some I pass without noticing almost every day) and she points out some interesting stuff (there's this ancient, amazing tree that's so old that it's roots have grown directly into a boulder. Really, you have to see it to believe it.) but after awhile we both got a little bored and decided that it was more fun just to look around than listen to her go on and on.

Did you know there's a memorial grove in the Park planted for the soldiers who died in WWI? All the trees have little plaques.