A Jedi in New York: Day 4

Still here! Again, another short entry as it’s pretty late, once again, and we both need our sleep! My legs are exhausted from the amount of walking we’ve both been doing.

Today we went to the Museum of Sex (surprisingly work-safe – the website, anyway) as it was something that little bit “different” to the norm, plus it was somewhere that we could again use our New York Passes.

There are three exhibitions on at the Museum at present – The Sex Lives of Animals, Sex and the Moving Image and a selection from the Museum’s permanent collection.

First came the Animals section, which presented an interestingly “alternative” take on natural history and biology by focusing exclusively on the sexual behaviour of animals, mostly looking closely at unusual behaviour which in many cases, the curator describes, goes against Darwin’s theories of natural selection, against Creationism and instead presents a third possibility.

In practical terms, this meant we got to look at videos of animals masturbating, fucking every possible way they could and even some discussion on homosexuality in animals, including the story of the gay penguins And Tango Makes Three which got banned from many, many educational institutions. It was interesting and, yes, different, as expected.

On the floor above was the Sex and the Moving Image exhibition. As the name implies, this exhibition charted the use of sex (or lack thereof) in movies from the earliest black and white silent films, where sex was mostly implied (with the exception of “stag” movies – early porn films, very few of which have survived due to their illegality at the time, but some examples of which were on, err, “display”) through the more liberal approach that developed over the years, taking in (no pun intended) Russ Meyer and Deep Throat all the way to modern porn and celebrity sex tapes, contrasting hugely with how mainstream film deals with sexual encounters. There were also some shorter videos from Beautiful Agony (NSFW) showing different people’s faces during orgasm, and a selection of sex-themed commercials from over the years.

Then in the final room we had the selections from the Museum’s permanent collection, which included male and female RealDolls (sex dolls that run into the thousands of dollars due to their supposed “realism”) to a selection of sex machines, including a terrifying-looking one that was essentially a rubber cock attached to a Black and Decker drill.

So that was nice.

Anyway, we spent rather longer in the Museum than we had intended, as we’d originally planned to move on to Bodies… The Exhibition and also potentially to go and see Ground Zero later in the day. However, we’d also made plans to meet up with the fine gentlemen Papapishu and Regulus for dinner in St Mark’s Place at a Japanese joint called Kenka which is often filled with Japanese ex-pats, is very noisy, serves traditional Japanese food that isn’t sushi (which I’ve never had before, and which proved to be delicious, even the deep-fried garlic) and serves terrifying “specials” such as bull penis.

So it’s been a good day, only marred by the fact that Jane’s not been feeling too well off-and-on since last night. I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing her a big “get well soon”.

A Jedi in New York: Day 3

Hello again! This has to be the most blog updates I’ve done in a week since… ever, I guess. Nothing like having the time to sit back, relax and not have to worry about anything. Jane’s currently soaking in a nice hot bath, we’ve had a nice meal at the hotel’s restaurant and another great day.

Today we did two main things. Firstly, we revisited Central Park, this time to go to the Central Park Zoo. Jane was very excited about this – so much so that she appeared to be regressing to childhood. I have to admit, it having been a long time since I’d seen a zoo also, I was also keen to see the animals.

Central Park Zoo is relatively small in the grand scheme of zoos. We later discovered by finally reading the guidebook that we bought a couple of days before the wedding that the Bronx Zoo is the one to go to if you want a full-on large-scale zoo/safari-style experience. That’s going to have to wait for another visit though, I think! This isn’t to say that Central Park Zoo isn’t good – far from it, in fact, as the relatively few displays of animals on offer mean that you can easily get around all of them and take plenty of photos.

We started by looking at the Rainforest section – an area where it is impossible for people to walk in without going “Oooh, it’s hot in here!”. Well, duh. In the Rainforest area we saw a huge variety of tropical birds and some amazing monkeys whose species escapes me for the moment, but they had huge bushy tails like squirrels that were very “expressive” in their own peculiar way.

Next up, we saw the polar bears, who were asleep. It occurred to us that it was entirely plausible for someone to go to one of these zoos and not see any animals if they were all asleep. I felt a little sorry for the polar bears as it was a relatively warm day today, but then I remembered how cold it had been for the last couple of days and determined that they were probably all right.

Moving around, we then saw a red panda, which looks more like a tree-hugging fox than a panda. It too was asleep, but at least it had the decency to sleep in a tree where you could see it.

Next we saw the snow monkeys of “see no evil” fame. These little guys were extremely active – running and jumping around and picking things off their feet. It’s strange how watching a creature like a monkey do something that we do – picking fluff from between your toes, for example – is infinitely more interesting and amusing than seeing another human doing it.

Then we saw the penguins, which Jane was very excited about. The penguins lived in a darkened room that smelled of fish, and were extremely docile, swimming right up to the edge of their enclosure and posing for pictures. I was also impressed at their speed in the water considering their clumsiness on land – and the fact that they can throw themselves out of the water at high speed and then land upright without breaking a sweat.

So that was the zoo. Fun, and a worthwhile way to spend the morning.

This afternoon we took the three-hour Circle Line Island Tour, which circumnavigates the whole of Manhattan with a guided commentary. The tour we elected to go on at 3:30 also happened to coincide with sunset towards its end, so it was likely to be a good photo opportunity. Photos to follow when I’ve been through all of them – over a thousand now, I reckon.