Arts: July 2007 Archives

Went to the Siren Fest for the first time in years, mostly just to get one last dose of the un-Disneyfied Coney Island before it's torn down, packed away, or whatever it is they're planning on doing with it. The concert portion of the day was as unbearable as I'd anticipated. After about 10 minutes of packing into a corridor with drunk, shovey people, standing on tiptoes for a glance of M.I.A. and barely being able to hear her thanks to crappy sound--we split and just wandered the boardwalk. That Wonder Wheel makes me all warm and fuzzy every time I see it.

Then we returned to the neighborhood for a nice dinner at Po. Appetizers were unbelievably good, and set a ridiculously high bar that the rest of meal couldn't possibly follow. The highlight was marinated anchovies piled on a suprisingly light mound of barley, the whole thing drizzled with lemon and chili oil--it's my new favorite dish. Entrees were definitely a letdown after that, especially a bean ravioli with an oddly sweet balsamic sauce. I plan to return, but will definitely order a little more cautiously.

After dinner, we headed out into the street and noticed a crowd forming a few blocks down. We investigated, and found one of the coolest street art projects I've ever seen. The artists were projecting words and images onto the sides of building. One wall was being used as a giant canvas for people to paint on using a motion-sensitive pen that was picked up by a laptop and then projected on the wall. On the other two walls, people were sending text messages that almost instantaneously popped up in little speech bubbles or in a really beautiful graffiti font. Anyone know anything more about this project?