In the past day or so, it seems I’ve encountered beavers, bridges and balloons more than I usually would. Well, that’s not entirely true. But it was a nice alliteration.
Take this beaver in the Astor Place subway station, for instance. I’ve been taking the subway much more since I moved to the Upper East Side. Every time I go through Astor Place on my way to NYU I see these beavers and I become more and more fond of them every day. Yesterday I finally had a camera with me so I was able to document these awesome subterranean ornamentations, and just now I’ve looked up their significance: Wikipedia says, “Plaques of beavers are located on the walls, in honor of John Jacob Astor’s fortune derived from the beaver-pelt trade.” There, I learned something new. In general, I love the old, odd tiling and art found in the subway stations and hope to document it more in my wanderings around the city.
Okay, so that’s one beaver.
Then, last night I listened to this song very closely for the first time: “Bridges and Balloons” by Joanna Newsom. I picked the song to listen to based on it’s awesome title, so it was pretty much random that I’d listen to it. And I really like it. It’s very happy and whimsical sounding, the kind of song I’d want to hear before embarking on a journey. It’s also a bit nonsensical and reminds me a little of Dr. Seuss. So tonight I saw a movie called Dedication, a romantic comedy directed by Justin Theroux starring Billy Crudup and Mandy Moore, and that song was in the movie! And it was in a scene where they were in a planetarium where they were looking for stars but also embarking on a journey…a journey of LOVE . So it was completely appropriate and it made me enjoy the movie that much more. (It really was a great movie, I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t like romantic comedies). In addition to that, the movie takes place in New York City, and I get a kick out of recognizing the places where many of the scenes unfold.
But back to beavers. The two main characters of this movie are working on a children’s book together, one is a writer and the other an illustrator. Their main character is, in fact, a beaver! Marty the Beaver, a somewhat unwholesome children’s book character. Because of that there is lots of talk about beavers and vaginas (er, vaginae?) and things, but the fact remains – I’ve had more than the usual amount of beaver on the brain lately.
