So of course I went to the park the other day to see the gates. (For those of you on Mars, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have an art installation in Central Park: 7,500 orange gateways from which hang orange fabric. They're on every walkway and path in Central Park.) I'm ambivalent on the question of these things as art, but as an event, as public theater, they couldn't be better. They are beautiful, especially in certain breezes and lights, it's undeniable. And to me, what they do as you walk through them is to point up all the non-natural things in the park. They're so square and orange -- a shape and color just not found in the park in the winter -- that they bring to the fore all those things I usually discount in my park experiences: signs, fences, traffic cones. It makes me think of John Cage's piano piece where the pianist comes out and just sits at the piano for a few minutes without playing, then gets up and goes offstage again. It makes you really notice the non-music sounds in the concert hall. And anything that gets you to look at things in a new way is good, I think. But the gates' real magic is this: from the minute you walk into the park, you're having an experience shared with everyone else. People are talking to each other, sometimes smiling, sometimes griping, but communicating, not just walking by. You start with the gates, and then it's Pale Male and Lola (our redtailed hawks) soaring overhead, and then it's the ducks in the boathouse pond, and then it's "where are you from?" because visitors have come from all over the world to see this thing. Now, of course every time you're in the park, or on a sidewalk or a subway car, you're having an experience shared with everyone there. But in order to survive as a hive species we politely ignore each other most of the time. And will go back to doing that once these gates are down. But for these two weeks there's a very different feeling in the park. If you're anywhere near here, I'd recommend you come on over and check it out.