retired from what?

Now one of my favorite NYC public spaces...at least on this Sunday afternoon... Checkers!  But not just any checkers.  When I was growing up we called the big ones Texas Checkers. And Krishnas supplying the soundtrack. Must have been a dozen chess tables in action (along with a seemingly ever-present Whole Foods). Token nudity. A street vendors inspiration/stimulation.  (Sheila bought an excellent cheap phone case from this guy.) Apparently this clock with 8 digits count up from midnight and 7 digits counting down to midnight had been keeping bad time in both directions, but was recently corrected.  It remains remarkably unmoving art (for a number of reasons I won't bother to enumerate in this sitting)... ...particularly compared to this find!  Victor, a Cuban immigrant, called it "mixed media".  It called my name from across the Square. Always figured the subway canopy was a nod to the Paris Metro.

It wouldn't be an honest blog if I didn't admit tha the vacation was, shall we say, impared.  I have pictures of my ugly bruises, still ugly after 11 days, but I think I've hit my limit with last spring's hammock attack bruise, so I'll spare you the gorey visuals.  Still cannot wear a shoe. Hands to shoulders, still in pain. Cannot open a twist off cap, cannot grasp, can't go to the grocery store because I couldn't carry the bags.  It's hard to feel like the biggest klutz especially when the DH is fit as a fiddle and ends up being my Sherpa, again and again.  Hurray for codeine. It was only with that aid that was able to walk and go places and do things and even drugged, I was far from fully functional. Should have traveled more when I was younger, though I know why we didn't. 

In 11 days, we went to three art museums, one history museum, and three art galleries.  It is foolish to take photos of art, because the are so lame in comparison to the real thing, but we do it anyway.  Two galleries in NYC presented a curated show whose theme was Detroit. There were all sorts of things included, old and current and some whose connection to the Motor City was not clear, but it was fascinating. This is Diego Rivera's portrait of Edsel Ford. We wondered how many visitors knew the story of how Ford convinced the directors of the Detroit Institute of Art that they must not destroy the 4 enormous murals Rivera was commissioned to paint. The images were controversial and small minds began to press for their destruction on the grounds that Rivera was a communist, but Edsel saved them. They are exquisite and amazing and, say what you will about the car named after him, Edsel Ford is a hero to all who love truth and beauty. There was also an endless loop of the MC5 fr...

No theme here...      Books in Boston      Makes me want a weather vane. The ceiling of of MFA Boston as seen in the mirror they have placed on a table top.     We not only like visiting cemeteries, but small town hardware stores as well.          Alas, the spigot marked ice water did not deliver, but I wonder how this century old hotel in Brattleboro, VT. would have accomplished that and when.     We ended up at the Norman Rockwell Museum, lured in by their Edward Hopper exhibit.      Hopper did plenty of work in the advertising field, which they showed, and hand made greeting      cards.    Rockwell's studio is exactly as he left it. Above and below, some of his books. And our final abode before NYC.

...and so Sheila pegged out during the play to win a close one.  After running the TSA gauntlet at AUS we felt obliged to play at least one game during the trip. Sat down in the cooling early eve at Madison Square Park, with the hour-long line for Shake Shack burgers (coming soon to Austin to give Hop Daddy a run for the money) winding behind us and Eataly visible through the trees across Broadway and 5th.  If I looked up to my left, I could see the Flatiron peeking at me. If I looked up to my right the ESB loomed. If I looked down, I could see the game slipping away from me...

Near our flat is a lovely ornate building I'm guessing to be 100 - 120 years old, all scrolley and pillared and it's a Home Depot.  These were banks.  Now one with the green dome is a CVS and the other with the eagle guarding the door is a men's spa. That's right. The old Port Authority building is now Google, with a Banana Republic at the retail level. And it's a very big building.  There is always a crowd near the Apple store, since it's so close to Central Park. In the glass cube is the elevator and thru the cube is the former Plaza Hotel, now condos, where Mark stays once back in his radio days.  And to think I was first in NYC when the Bowery was...the Bowery. 

Our semi-basement flat has a door out onto a small green space where direct sunlight hits it for only a small portion of the morning, which Mark sought to capture and a neighbor inquired "Hey! Whaddaya dune."