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Guy YedwabWriting The Essay
 Irridescence
When you're colorblind, there's something comforting about an item without a defined color. Atone moment, the people passing by are struck by the distinct greenness of the object. At another moment, people are looking at the deep shades of purple, enjoying its texture. This is one of the manyallures of 
2001
, the temporary installation across from the Grand Army Plaza.Unlike its neighbor 
General Sherman
,
2001
is a very modest installation. It is simply a “ball”composed of cubes and spheres, sitting modestly on top of the sidewalk in much the way that littlevendor's carts sit upon the sidewalk. There is a small rope-fence around it, so weak that some child hasknocked it over on his way to the Central Park Zoo nearby. It sits, balanced precariously across thehexagons of the sidewalk tile, looking as though any child could roll it into the middle of 5
th
Avenueand watch the yellow cabs of New York smash into its smooth surface and shatter the brittle-seemingmetal into a thousand beautiful and deadly shards, dancing across the black asphalt of the road to puncture a million more tires. The orderly simple shapes of the cube, because of their seeminglytenuous equilibrium, seem ready to leap out into chaos and destruction. It seems almost a sin to allow itto rest there, motionless, still.Standing up close to
2001
, you can see yourself reflected in it. From almost any angle, however,your face isn't visible—it isn't reflective when you look at it directly. But at even the slightest angle,things are visible, casting your eye at the world around you (but not directly into your own face) asrendered in a warped, green-purple, dark-yet-irridescent way.It seems to be filled with stars, and it fills the world around you with stars as well.It seems out of place, not in the way, but not in a space built for it. It seems to be in motion, butit it is perfectly still. It seems like it is green or seems to be purple, but is in fact somewhere in between.The longer you try to fix your eyes on what it is, the more you realize that you're not entirely sure.What, for instance, does its name refer to? It is difficult to find a reference to the movie in the shape— 
of 00

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