I've just been reading a fair bit about Ms. Deng. Interesting woman.
Not my kind of home, but definitely my kinda neighbourhood.
MORE WORDSBOUT WHAT THE HELL YOU ALL DID, AND ABOUT EACH OTHER!!!!!
WORDS, DAMMIT!@!!
Tell us about our fellow A2kers!!!!
I mean, the photies are good, but I want descriptions.
I've been sworn to secrecy.
(EhBeth, I polished off the last of the candy last night.)
I sure could go for a knishpuppy about now...
I can only gather that people of the region want privacy, which I can appreciate.
Now that I've regretfully accepted that for the next six weeks or so I'll be living in the Real World, I can write about my Last Escape:
Thursday afternoon:
In the Chelsea Market wholesale flower shop in the cacutus section, I was embraced from behind by ehBeth and introduced to Eugenie. Since they were starving, having last eaten the night before, ehBeth had her chocolate milk and we decided to eat Italian.
Frank found us and as soon as we were finished eating, marched us off to the Chelsea pier. I don't think Frank actually hold credentials as Ambassador for the Chelsea Pier, but I'm sure the administration is printing up the paper work. Thanks to Frank, we met two sets of German tourists, an American marionette maker andseveral skateboarding mothers. We gawked at the skateboard park, the yachts, the historical photographs and summaries of Chelsea Pier past, the head of Ozymandius, a red, white and blue fiberglass horse, a cast iron umbrella, and a great deal of manure in the weary flower beds. (The Mounted Police Stables are on Chelsea Pier).
Name dropping time: As the sun went down and the wind came up, the Queen Mary cruised down the Hudson and out to sea. Before she was out of sight, Steve Forbes' yacht left its mooring, moved to the middle of the river and the helicoptor took off from the roof of the cabin.
When the In Group talks of "The Frying Pan, the Best Kept Secret" they mean that The Frying Pan is a little weatherbeaten (not "seedy", mind, --it was never gussied up for the tourist trade), very informal with very strong waters at very reasonable prices.
Kicky joined us, flushed with his decision to stay in the big city, and took us off to an excellent Italian restaurant. Frank has no problem jaywalking across six lanes of traffic. Perhaps he assumes diplomatic immunity.
Friday:
I arrived at Artie's about an hour late (I'm still not an expert on Big City Bus Transport) and while I was scanning the lunchtime crowd for either my college group or the A2K group, Lion Tamer reached down and tapped me on the shoulder.
Lion Tamer would probably be an asset for any pick-up basketball game. He's a man with long bones and a sweet smile. For autumn in New York, he was wearing his very favorite cut-offs. I expect he hacked the pant legs off All By Himself.
By the time I reached the table, ehBeth and Eugenie had convinced Ms. LT that we were not a formidable, hostile group. Ms. LT a fine-boned woman (with bones of the very best ivory) who puts up with LT's individualistic wardrobe without trimming off the extra-long strings. The pair is obviously in love as well as inhabiting a universe of mutual respect.
I know that ehBeth and Eugenie has spent the morning shopping on Canal Street and riding the Staten Island Ferry. By the time I arrived for my knish they were revved up for the Russians at the Guggenheim.
I fully expected my college friends to be waiting at the appointed meeting space, but due to time and space and the inherent fecklessness of middle aged gray matter, we never did make connections. While I stood beacon light to the right of the entrance door, ehBeth, Eugenie and the Lion Tamers checked out the museum shop. While I didn't actually see her, I expect ehBeth organized human pyramid so she could focus her camera on the View of the Guggenheim Spiral from Ground Central.
Meanwhile the security staff decided that I really should grab one of the Guggenheim wheelchairs while the grabbing was good.
Finally after several attempts to reach my wandering friends by cell phone and phone card, I settled down in my wheelchair. Lion Tamer was very gallant about playing Caucasian Coolie--but was vetoed by the Women Of and Not-Of A2k on account of his back problems.
EhBeth grabbed the wheelchair and started climbing the ramp. We were a compatible combination of Art Tourists since we both regard any given example of the visual arts as a superlative jumping-off-point for free association. My guess is that we were in the 95th percentile of joyous art observers. I know for sure and for certain that a number of other people were listening to us as though our comments had substantial merit.
Going down the ramp ehBeth chose to speculate on gravity and trajectories and the likely flight course of an unattended wheelchair. She's such an enthusiastic person, full of whims and fancies.
More later.
Oooh!
Now those are some good words.
Thanks.
Noddy,
Down here in North Kakalak, my outfit was what we call Sunday go to meetin' clothes. I did indeed hack the pant legs off myself. They are Mrs. Lion's favorites.
I have a feeling that the Guggenheim is in the process of implementing a speed limit for wheelchairs, thanks to the two of you.
Did anyone else notice the mothball lady ?
LionTamer--
You speak like a transplanted Yankee with shallow southern roots. If your Guggenheim costume were truely Sunday-Go-To-Meeting, you wouldn't have been wearing tennis shoes.
You were dressed for the occasion: A meeting of highly individual minds and bodies and we all love you to pieces.
Mothball lady? Do tell? Us poor "otherly abled" miss a great deal.
Noddy,
We encountered a smallish woman on the upper floors who was well protected against moths. Try as we might, we couldn't manage to get more than ten feet from her before she would catch us again. She had either just gotten her wardrobe out of the steamer trunk that day, or her pockets were filled with mothballs.
All part of the NYC experience I suppose.
One of the hard facts of Big City Living is that you can't take your winter clothes out of the steamer trunk and hang them out in the open air to disperse the reek of naphthalene.
In my day, camphor was a sovereign protection against the ravages of moths, but times change.
Tell them about the Beautful Corner.
mmmmmmmmm, cinnamonum camphorum, quite a tree... but y'know me, I can't smell much.
Interesting, was she, er, sort of isolated looking? I picture her being more my mother's age, which would make her a hundred plus, which it doesn't sound like she is.
Piquant. I keep using that word recently.
Picturing if it was a one day adventure in a recent tough life for her... the whole scenario of being at the guggenheim and having people react in various ways to you.
Who knows... interesting to conjecture.
The Beautiful Corner.
LionTamerX owes the crowd that one.
As for mothball lady, let us imagine our own .
As for the Beautiful Corner...
I will be back when I am sober and rested.
Osso's link shows the painting after six clicks to the right.
As for the Art of Russia (instead of personal details about A2K members and other colorful people):
Keep in mind that I'm a Woman Subject to Cultural Overload. After being exposed to masterpieces for an hour or so, my eyes glaze and my mind balks.
The exhibit opened with several rooms of Russian icons from the late 14th and 15th centuries. I'm not an expert on art, let alone medieval religious art, but I noticed while Greek Orthodox icons tend to be much of a sameness, the Russian Orthodox visual aids were full of individualized portraits. Angels weren't generic mannequins parcelled out to every church and monastery in the frozen north, but particularly heavenly beings, intent on particular tasks.
I knew in a general way that the Tzars and the Russian aristocrats were enamoured of European culture, but until I saw this exhibit I hadn't realized how little indigenous Russian art existed before the late l9th century.
By the time we got to the early quirky modern painters, I was suffering from full blown culture shock. Room after room of European masterpieces will do that.
EhBeth insisted--and I've very glad she did--a stop in the Chagall room, part of the Guggenheim permanent collection. I love the way that man paints his corners of our weary world.
Noddy, thanks for the run down!
LTX - the painting is of a black box on white background?
littlek wrote:
LTX - the painting is of a black box on white background?
Exactly. Noddy and ehBeth were mesmerised by it.
<phew ... thought I'd lost the pix of the mini-tour with Bree ... >
Eugenie and The Black Square.
She's still laughing two weeks later.
Saturday night:
The get-together at Lola's has been written about. I can add only a few details. Bernie looks very fit. Helen of Troy is still a Woman of Mystery. Lola has started a Hobby With Potential, designing and stringing contemporary beads.
