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Well, I have no little town blues, coming from the Big Smoke of Bangkok, but nevertheless, I went to New York for two weeks in April.
New York is a big city of concrete. When I used the adjectives “big” and “concrete” (though “concrete”, in the sense of stuff what you use for pavements, is traditionally not an adjective), to describe it to my little brother, he rightfully pointed out that this was not a very illuminating or sufficient description. Like the boy who pointed out the emperor was wearing no clothes. Anyway, so, all the green is there in very specific, defined spaces - contained in small parks throughout the city, or trees set out in those square holes in the sidewalk, some planters with tulips and daffodils around. There's no grass nature strips, and the houses don't have front yards so there are no personal, individual spaces of greenery, and this makes a real difference to the feel of the city. It’s concrete. Not that all the tulips, daffodils, jonquils, and the cherry trees in blossoms aren’t bursts of joy, but there’s just no chaos or sense of abundance to the nature (in the sense of trees and
stuff, not in the sense of character) of New York.
The “big” bit really is self-explanatory, even for a ten-year-old. It’s all on a grand scale (though ordered). The buildings are huge. The people are loud. The sirens are unceasing. Having said that, the streets beyond Times Square seemed relatively quiet to me, after Bangkok, where there is so much life - hawkers, sellers, people just hanging out, stray dogs - on the street. It was a bit strange to be walking around New York, thinking, “Gosh! It’s so quiet! (apart from the sirens),” because that doesn’t match my picture of New York.
New York does, of course, have great museums. I went to the Museum of Natural History which has some beautiful, impressive exhibits, particularly in the Hall of Biodiversity and the Hall of Marine Life. In the Hall of Biodiversity, they have this incredible exhibit called the Spectrum of Life, which includes examples of hundreds of different species of animals, all pinned to the wall, making an arresting sight. There’s a display of protoctists, which are single-celled or simple multi-cellular organisms. The larger-than-life size models they’ve created are beautiful.
Of course, I also visited the
Museum of Modern Art which is one of the best modern art museums in the world. I’m not a huge Van Gogh fan but seriously, there’s something about Starry Night which is just breath-taking. Especially when you compare it to the Starry Night on the placemat on the dinner table at home... the placemat just doesn’t quite do the painting justice. There was also an exhibition of
Edvard Munch I quite enjoyed. Though ‘enjoy’ isn’t really a word which comes quickly to mind when looking at his melancholic, gloomy paintings, but having only been familiar with “The Scream” prior to this, it was good to see more of his works.
I also went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is huge. They have rooms full of paintings by that fan of pre-pubescent ballerinas, Degas, which I’d have liked to look at more (guess this is the result of my lingering ambition to have been a ballerina). I sort of wandered through a very small section of it with my host on my second day there and can't remember much now... guess I was jet-lagged.
The highlight of the museums was undoubtedly (though only by a small margin over
the Natural History Museum)
the Frick Collection which is truly truly wonderful, probably one of my favourite art museums now. It hosts a collection of great European art - the old masters, French furniture and porcelains, Oriental carpets and sculpture in a beautiful mansion built 1913 -14, across from Central Park. Some highlights of the collection include Holbein’s Sir Thomas Moore, Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s
The Progress of Love, Giovanni Bellini’s
St Francis in the Desert ... and so on... there were too many captivating paintings there for me to name them all.
Of course I wandered around New York, which was a pleasure as Bangkok is not a walkable city (though I froze my little toes off at night-time) - Central Park, Greenwich Village (very cute), Little Italy (loved it), Soho (underwhelmed, not sure if I was really walking through Soho), Battery Park, Chinatown (chaotic of course), and did a
boat tour all around the island of Manhattan which was great. My host took me to a great jazz gig, at
Marjorie's, which is held in Marjorie's apartment. It's an endearing set-up, with little fold-up plastic chairs set out in her living room and along the hallway, and three guys, one on piano, a saxophonist (to my fellow saxophonist nay-sayers,
this guy was good, enjoyable), and one on double bass, plus a gorgeous young women with a gorgeous voice.
I saw my dear friend Sophie, an Australian currently living in New York, which was wonderful. We went to this great restaurant,
Ivo and Lulu, where we had these delicious blue cheese and honey-slathered roasted pears, yummo. Some of the food in New York was a highlight, and just to not be eating rice for every single meal for over two weeks was bliss. Had this SENATIONAL brunch at
Sarabeth’s, oh god it was good, I do miss eating out for breakfast: The Red Omelette - a chunky filling of tomato, red pepper, cheddar and a dollop of sour cream with chives, and a Four Flowers Juice - blend of orange juice, fresh pineapple, bananas and pomegranate juice). Also had some delicious Mexican food - isn’t it amazing how the simple combination of avocado, sour cream, cheese and beans can be so tasty? Finally, some dear American and Canadian friends who I met while on exchange in Belgium almost 10 years ago, came to NYC for a big reunion, which was glorious. We just fell right back into our old friendships as
if we’d never been apart.
I've put more my photos online at my Flickr page - click
here.
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