Friday, January 4, 2002

for sale on ebay

"Resume

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live."

Dorothy Parker, Resume

We start over an expensive hotel breakfast. Good coffee but $5.50. I don't fret about this like I usually do, figuring they need a little extra revenue. We decide that we should start at the Met and walk back if we are so inclined. It is cold and bitter outside. Makes you glad you brought a muffler, gloves and one of those bands for your ears. So far none of us have lost any of these accessories. You always see stray gloves around in the winter. I've seen two different loners, propped hopefully on a ledge, both of them, in hopes the owner of the mate will happen by again. Which reminds me of a bad poem I wrote last time we were in New York.

We take a cab up Madison and climb out happily near the Met...the driver was on a mission! We check coats and such and agree to meet in an hour to assess what next.

Being alone in the Met Museum is glorious. I decide to go to European painting. I spend a bunch of time looking at some familiar friends, discovering some new stuff. I make my way to the toilet and just after I get out of there I have a coughing jag. My lungs ache. I am in Islamic Art, as luck would have it, and perfectly alone coughing save for a guard who peers around a corner to see that I'm not going to die. I get over it. I must get some cough drops.

Meanwhile, I wonder off to visit Monet's painting of the cathedral at Rouen. There are actually many such paintings and in 1994 I saw a bunch of them brought together in Rouen's art museum so the different versions, in different lights, and the contemporaneous notebooks could be viewed together. Indeed, we first viewed the cathedral itself before preceding to the art museum. Just a very cool thing where I read about it in The New York Times, the timing was right, we were going to be 'in the neighborhood.' Perhaps, this painting was among those. Probably so. On loan.

I visit the modern paintings. The black and shades of gray, blocks of color, the absurd ideas that sometimes make sense to the viewer. I love museums. I could spend days and days here. I haven't looked at the mummies or the special show or the furniture or musical instruments.

We all meet up again and Mags decides to head out out on her own. A bit more musuem and then Central Park.

"Where's Central Park?" she asks.

"We're in it." I say.

"What?"

"We're in it. This building is on the edge of the park." I show her the map.

SuRu and I decide to stay together. Sort of anyway. I'm feeling pretty weak. Sitting and pondering on a bench seems wise. But inside where it is warm. I suggest we look at the sculpture garden which is a big indoor atrium. I notice there is a little café at the end of it. A table by the windows is available. I get a coffee and some water and SuRu sits with me a bit. She says she is interested in some museum shopping and a little more museum browsing. I tell her that I will sit here while she shops the musuem shops and wanders the musuem.

People come and go. Inside and also outside on the park trails. Walkers, runners, dog walkers, roller bladers, bikers, skate boarders, scooter riders. Dressed warmly in scarves and fur hats. The occasional taxi or park vehicle. A worker collects leaves in one area.

Inside various people come and go at the table next to me. A couple of dapper elderly men discuss the time when the facade in the courtyard was the outside of the museum. They discuss old friends and old spots.

"He used his money," says one.

"Building that house," says the other.

When SuRu returns, we leave after a longish wait at coat check. I'm already ready to come back to the museum on my next trip. I love that museum. Every visit it becomes more of a friend. We don't have museums in Austin that have huge permanent collections and special shows, places to be lost in for days and days. I'm happy that workers are using flashlights to peer inside bags being brought inside, trying to protect this wonder from terrorists.

We cut over to Madison and walk to an upscale pharmacy where I get some cough drops and the woman at the counter says that the pharmacist recommends ComTrex. And therein begins a week of taking same in an attempt to clear the crud from my head.

We walk and look and, finally, duck into a little café where they are caught in the time between late, late lunchers and early 'after shopping' dinner eaters. We have some soup and an appetizer. I'm having trouble eating.

We manage to walk all the way back to the hotel on 52nd street, in spite of the cold and my sniffling.

We rest and dress for the Oak Room. I suggest we walk since it isn't too far. SuRu says that she can't walk far in her dressy shoes. I suggest that she wear her walking shoes and change at the Algonguin.

We walk into a buzzing 'Gonk'. The lobby bar is full of lively people. The staff tells us to check coats and check in at the Oak Room. SuRu sits in a throne-like chair near the entrance, and changes her shoes. Soon we are in the tiny Oak Room, looking at the dinner choices.

I can barely eat and only sip at an insipid wine by the glass. Andrea Marcovicci pops into the room on her way to the dressing room, greeting people and PRing them.

The show is a tribute to Gertrude Lawrence. I have to admit that before I booked I'd never heard of Andrea or Gertrude. Mags was familiar with Gertrude, her ties to Noel Coward and her fame for the musical King and I.

The show is a long set with no intermission and Andrea works the crowd and uses everything...even a tribute to Dorothy Parker when someone's cell phone rings. (Not the poem I've quoted, but a comment she made about excusing herself from the table to 'go to the toilet.' "I wasn't really but I was embarrassed to say I was making a phone call."

We walk back to the hotel, stopping at an all-night grocery for a couple of things. This time, when SuRu changed her shoes in that chair at the front, she amused a bellman no end.

We agree that we will try to go downtown tomorrow. To get close enough to the devastation to pay our respects.

JUST TYPING
One envisions things.
Expecting less.
Expecting more.
Changing the experience.