Manhattan Scenes

I walked through Central Park yesterday on my way to the East Side. There are always some good photo-taking opportunities, including the three gals above, all wearing green helmets. At the southeast end of the Park, at 59th Street, there are some new sculptures, which always provide tourists their own photo occasions.

Later I met Rick and we went to the Museum of Biblical Art, outside of which is a sculpture by Lincoln Fox honoring Jeremiah Lanphier. Move over George Segal!

We had gone to the Museum for a talk by a professor of religious studies, who will remain unnamed. He gave an awful talk on the "structural similarities" between religion and film -- totally deconstructive and desacralizing (both religion and movies offer "prescriptive tools" for living, etc.), what one can expect nowadays in humanities departments. (The Purple Rose of Cairo is "the most religious film ever made." Go figure.) The talk was in connection with a really cool exhibit at the Museum, however, featuring many vintage movie posters and other film memorabilia, including the pectoral worn by Ramses (Yul Brynner) in The Ten Commandments., designed, according to the wall label, by Edith Head. As a child, one of my favorite TV shows was the annual Academy Awards; I loved the sight of Edith Head on stage receiving another Oscar. For a review of the exhibit, with some illustrations, see here and here. I also took some photos, charmed by the claims on the posters. I wonder if this is where Europeans got their opinion that Americans were "uncultured"?

"Taken from the Life of Christ"! indeed.

And the poster for the Passion Play, below, besides advertising "the world's greatest Christus portrayer and His family," also promises performances by "the original German company," which, as Rick says, would make it about 700 years old! "America," as Goethe said, "you have it better"!