Trekkie Monster is the alter-ego of Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster in the award-winning Broadway play, Avenue Q, which is an adult parody of Sesame Street. Geoffrey and I saw it several years ago and it was completely hilarious. Created by Rick Lyon, Trekkie is obsessed with social media and has made millions of dollars off investments in various platforms. In a previous iteration of the show, the original Trekkie was obsessed with Star Trek, hence his name.
Photographed in the Museum of The City of New York as Part of the Exhibit, Puppets of New York.
Anyone familiar with Sesame Street will recognize the likenesses of both Cookie Monster and The Count on the side of this well-tagged box truck, which I snapped a few photos of as it was stopped on Lafayette Street. The truck is the work of the COD Cru, a Bronx-based group of graffiti artists that’s been active since 1983! TC5 and KMS are two of the artists who left their tags on the truck. I wish I had been able to get a glimpse of the other side!
I’ve been fortunate to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art probably half a dozen times since it reopened last July, post-Covid lockdown, but the building’s roof garden only just reopened in April, for the debut of its latest site-specific commission. As Long As The Sun Lasts, by Philadelphia-based artist Alex Da Corte, is a whimsical mash up of Sesame Street and the works of Alexander Calder that could light up the rooftop even on the cloudiest day.
White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland/Dali-Themed Art By Eye Sticker (All Photos By Gail)
The pandemic has changed a lot about the way I live my life, and it has definitely changed my relationship to art. During the months when galleries and museums were closed, I turned to the galleries of the streets for inspiration, and spent hours each week walking and documenting what I saw. I discovered that many street artists were inspired by the experience of isolation due to Covid, and the increasingly dystopian nature of society imposed by the previous administration, to step-up the surreal nature of their creations. One new artist I kept seeing all over the city, whose work moved me immediately, was called Eye Sticker. Of course, the Eye is Pink.
Trump Troll
Eye Sticker (also known as EYE) is an anonymous, gender-unspecified persona whose work often centers on a familiar, pop-culture image distinguished by the inclusion of a bright Pink Eye with an x-shaped iris at its center. The first work I saw by Eye Sticker was a paste up on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village, where I  live. The piece depicted Dump as a Troll Doll, with a shock of pink hair and beady pink eyes that looked like those drawn by cartoonists to indicate that a person or animal is deceased. Appropriate, I thought. Continue reading Pink Thing of The Day: The Art of Eye Sticker→
Oh man, what is sadder than an abandoned toy? I spotted this rag doll,  a Sesame Street character who is a magical fairy called Abby Cadabby, tossed between a dumpster and a garbage bag near Campos Plaza on East 14th Street. Her Bright Pink yarn hair caught my eye immediately. I feel sadness. I’m sorry I could not save you, littler Pink-haired fairy muppet doll!
