Culture Wars

Is the NY Times's non-stop weekend of culture for the hoi polloi or the jet set?



(above) PS 1's Primordial Soup-like Outdoor Sculpture, during a Warm Up party

So, several weeks ago, the New York Times had an obnoxious but well-intentioned article entitled “All Culture; All the Time.” A journalist apparently spent $1260 for a nonstop weekend of doing all of NYC’s cultural entertainments and reported back with blow-by-blow reporting on the fabulous things he crammed into one weekend. I’m not exactly sure whether the intention is to trigger envy or revulsion or a combination of both.

On the one hand, this clearly represented a great opportunity to publicize the undiscovered gems of the five boroughs. But given the cost of the foray, and the fact that the Met Museum of Art, the American Ballet Theater, the Guggenheim, and a Broadway show “The History Boys,” don’t really need much more in the way of publicity, the article was not really for the adventurer or the deal seeker. On the other hand, even among those who could afford a weekend like this one, we are told early on that they wouldn’t want to. With a “kids say the darndest things” invocation of cuteness, our columnist shares the fact that his daughters were dreading the ballet until they became enamored of those graceful air born boy ballerinas, but maddeningly refuses to comment on whether or not, after his whirlwind tour, he has a rebuttal for his friends and family who told him that his weekend “sounds like hell.”

To be sure, he does go to some lesser known choices, such as the Francis M. Neumann Gallery, currently showcasing female Dada artists, but other attempts at cheaper or less usual choices seem half hearted: he ends up at the Neumann Gallery because the Moma’s male-centric Dada exhibit is too crowded; he gives up on the highly touted (but free!) Chelsea show "Helter Swelter" at the Oliver Kamm because it is closed on the weekends. (Though you’d think one of the New York Times editors would have tipped him off on the fact that NYC’s galleries are closed on Saturdays in the summer?) And really, any bohemian on a shoestring out there could easily beat that hefty figure and get just as much culture.

While I can’t link directly to the article (oh, you stick in the mud, Times Select!) I’m tempted to follow in the tradition of trendy health food magazines: a despondent reader provides their favorite recipe and the magazine produces its own version, replacing every ounce of lard with egg substitute, applesauce, tofu and voila! A dramatic reduction in calories, and the despairing housewife informs the readers how much it tastes just the like dear old aunt Tillie’s recipe for Fried Cheese Pudding Tarts. (Although for total transparency, I am presuming our New York Times reporter got the best available seats without resorting to discount codes, etc, in order to ring up that whopping final figure) Additionally, his costs may have also blown up on the fact he was taking along family members. At any rate, I've made the following calculations made on individual admissions.

Here are just a few alternatives...(No, I don't know why there's this annoying gap below; I shall repair when back from the midwest!)

New York Times	Price		"Shoestring" alternative	Price
Guggenheim Museum	$18		PS 1 Warm Up Party – Cheap wine, hot dogs, precocious controversial artists, funky outdoor sculpture (see above), and a diverse range of twenty and thirty-somethings	$10
American Ballet Theatre “Le Corsaire”	$160 (orchestra seats)		Summerstage (featuring “Noche Flamenca” in July) or Lincoln Center Out of Doors	Free
The Metropolitan Museum of Art	$20		The Isamu Noguchi Museum “Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi”	$10
The History Boys	$105 (orchestra seats)		catching a show at The New York Fringe Festival	$15
“Keep it Quiet” screening at Lincoln Center	$10		River to River Festival’s free outdoor movie series (“Rear Window” is to be played on 8/29)	Free
Bargemusic classical music concert	$35		Sunday classical music concerts at MoMA’s sculpture garden	Free
Dale Chihuly exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden	$20		Flux Factory's comic-inspired installation “Opolis”	Free (Open for most of July but – as I am writing this, sadly past- they should have another installation on view soon)
School of the Americas (LAByrinth Theater)	$50		I actually dislike diverting future audiences from an off-Broadway play, but if I must name an alternative in diatribes against violent, evil regimes, the punk version of Titus Andronicus at The Tank should do nicely.	$10
“Bodies” Exhibit at South Street Seaport Museum	$8		The “SKRAWL” exhibit of mutant animals at New York Public Library	Free
Grand Total	$486		Grand Total	$45