Steve and I have been visiting Jeff in NYC. The Guggenheim was our first museum stop. The building is famous for good reason. We all really enjoyed out time in it.

Christopher Wool is the artist featured in the special exhibit now hanging along the curved walls on the walkway from floor to ceiling level.

What can I say? His works are visible from a distance which is good in this space.

I did like several of the pieces…

However, I enjoyed watching people look at the art more than I actually enjoyed the art itself.

It’s easy to ask yourself exactly what makes this art. Certainly, that thought went through my mind. Maybe this artist was the first to do word art? Probably not.

I liked the starkness of the black and white pieces. A whole lot of his work reminded me not so much of quilts, but of printed fabric. He did base a few pieces on re-workings of his older canvases into new pieces which is an interesting idea.

As I said, I liked many of his pieces but if I had seen them out of this context, I would not have considered them obivious subjects for museum display. Without knowing more, I have to assume that a lot Christopher Wool’s success comes from being in the right place, at the right time, with the right people. Once annointed, his art became ART.

This city is full of eye candy. There are patterns and textures and interesting things to see no matter where you look. Nearly everyone has a camera. The line that separates ART worthy of hanging in a museum from cool pictures that end up on a computer’s desktop is a thin one.

Is this 6′ canvas art?:

Or is it a just an interestly-cropped and tweaked photo of the poles and cords for the ticket line?

Looking at modern art is good for me. It is a reminder that I do not get to decide what art is for anyone except for myself, and that’s enough for me :-).

You may have seen this before, but it's both interesting and fun:

Have I mentioned that my walking partner, Laurie, has joined a group of folks here in town who are hoping to log 1000 miles this year? I think I can do it but I am not officially joining the group because I'm too competitive. I know this about myself and it can get out of hand. That said, I've begun paying more attention to my own actual miles walked. 

I work standing up (except when sewing). I walk a lot through the day but I'm sure I over-estimate how much I walk. So I bought a Fitbit One so that I can get an accurate count of how much I'm moving. The first One I bought turned out to be defective and it made me cranky until the company told me it was the unit, not me. The Fitbit people replaced it for free, with no hassle, and the new one is working very well.

This little device can keep track of a lot—miles and steps walked, floors climbed. There are web and phone dashboards where you can enter other activities like pilates and weight-lifting, food/calories consumed. There's a scale that links to the device but I'm just logging my daily weight manually.

I don't need to lose weight so why am I doing this? Because I'm competitive, that's why. I've decided to compete with myself. It's nice to have that 1000 mile goal, but mostly I want to collect the data on what I really do, not just what I think I do. I have osteoporosis and I really need to do more. It's early yet, but so far I'm finding that I am looking for places to add a few more steps, to take more stairs.

Boy—I would really love to walk up the musical stairs!

I love this video. Not because of the skill involved, although this young girl is doing something I would never in my life have attempted. I love it because I know the feeling. We all do. Doing something for the first time can be very scary.

How do we make ourselves do scary things? We summon our courage, that's how. It's so good to know that we can all be courageous.

I think that what Ms. Aamodt says in this TED talk about dieting and weight rings true. What it means is that we should all focus more on healthy eating and not worry so much about how much we weigh. I know I've heard that before and so, probably, have you. But she speaks eloquently about weight, in a way that ought to make us all less critical of ourselves and others.

If you have an iPhone or iPad, I guarantee that it will do things that you don't know about. I found this Buzzfeed list by way of another quilter's facebook post (thanks to Frieda!) and I learned a few things. The real trick will be remembering them.

It's good to know how to save a google map so that you can access it even if your device can't connect to the internet (#3) but the trick for deleting a wrong number in the calculator is something I'm more likely to find useful:

I didn't know that you can add a folder to the icon bar or the domain name trick in #17. It's nice to learn new things!

I have a tumblr blog, although I don't post to it often. It's one of those things I'm going to do more often "once I finish this book." (There are so many things that are on the list for then. Sigh.)

Anyway, I do subscribe to a few tumblr blogs and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of them. They post some fun photos. This one of crown jellyfish caught my attention because they are the Pantone color of the year. Woo hoo! Do you you think they know?