Memo to file: Do not drive to Manhattan on the day of the New York Marathon. You can't get there from north and, if you do get there, you cannot get out. Here's the Marathon map.
We had an urge to see the Lod Mosaic and the Miro show at the Met today. Just a quick visit, in and out - but it seemed like every highway entrance and exit was closed, with extensive, traffic-jammed detours all around the periphery of the running route.
45,000 mostly out-of-town runners, with family and supporters on the sidewalks, and all the relevant bridges and roads and cross-streets closed, it's a miracle we got home.
We managed to get to the museum by parking 15 blocks away. I think I could have gotten home faster running than driving. I need a Manhattan pied a terre badly, but the government hasn't given me one, yet.
For all the hassle sometimes, and corny as it sounds, I really do love New York. Vitality, variety - all that. It's stimulating to me, just walking around and looking at stuff. Woods and meadows rarely surprise me, because I seem to know them so well. Humans - their works and antics - always surprise me.
I am not blessed with superior brainpower, but I believe I was blessed with a capacity to be enchanted by the details of life.
The Roman mosaic was good to see in person - the teeth of the fish are cool - and the Miro show was fascinating. Miro is always fascinating to me. I don't think of his stuff as surrealism, but instead as just plain hallucinatory. Completely strange, like an acid trip. His work always goes "Ding," Boing," "Snap," "Whirrrrr," "Wheeee," "Pop!" to me. Auditory, synesthetic.
The small show was about his short series of paintings called Dutch Interiors, based on old Dutch images and paintings which he transformed through what he termed his "tragicomic" method.
The show moved from the Rijksmuseum to New York last month. Here's one of the pictures from the show:
I took some random pics, as usual.
I have been told that Grace's Marketplace on 3rd Ave. is the best place to buy cheese in NYC. They generally offer 220+ varieties. Some folks prefer Citarella's, which has a location a few blocks away from Grace's on Third Ave. Better prices, but I know that fancy chefs get their cheeses at Gracie's.
A few more of my lousy NYC pics from today, below:
The famous P.J. Clarke's:
Excellent NYC deli on Lex and 77th. Great-looking Greek spinach pie. If the countermen aren't sarcastic, rude, and impatient, it's a lousy deli.
Despite the Marathon, the museum was full of people.
Bloomingdales, on the left. I never go there.
