SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL

I'm not going to wax on about this because everybody knows more about 911 than I do, due to the fact that everybody in the US watched it on TV for days on end, and I was in France at the time with no TV and didn't even know about it until a day later.

The memorial is really beautiful.  I had seen pictures of it, but I had no idea how large it actually is.  It has the water spilling down the side into a pool and in the middle of the pool there is a large square that the water then falls into, which is deep enough that you can't see into the bottom of it, no matter how tall you are or where you get on the grounds.  Around the edges of the pools (there are two identical pools) there is a railing about 3 feet wide or so that has the names of all the victims engraved on it.   There is even a special section for the victims who were killed in the earlier 1993(?) attempt to blow up the World Trade Center. 

You have to have tickets, which are free, to be admitted to the site, but this is just to organize the crowd control.  Security is about as tight as getting on an airplane, except you don't have to remove your shoes.   They say that once all the construction around the memorial is finished, people will be able to wander in and out at will. 

In no particular order, I'm adding a few pictures from the memorial.  I tried getting some on line, because mine really aren't all that good, but the available ones, which were beautiful, didn't give you an idea of the scale, because there were no people in them.   

This picture of a pear tree is a kind of miracle tree. After all the destruction, it was stripped bare, but still standing and someone rescued it. It was planted in a park somewhere in NYC and nursed back to health. When they finished the memorial, they dug the poor thing up again and carted it back here and replanted it (under a bunch of bricks and with what looks like hardly any area for its roots to grow) and yet it has survived and actually looks pretty healthy. I think when it dies it will just quietly disappear, since it's there as such a symbol of life and hope. We were supposed to meet our friend Laura at the Memorial at 4:30, but we had a mixup and she was waiting for us at the ticket office to the memorial, so we both waited for an hour. We were planning on going to a free evening concert at the World Financial Center, so eventually we decided we'd just go on to the concert anyway.

She was there, and it was a really fun concert, though -- need I say it -- way too loud for comfort as far as I was concerned. Maria de Barros was the headliner, and she had a wonderful mix of Caribbean and African sounds, also a bit jazzy. It was a very high energy show. After the show we took a little walk around the general area which has had massive funding since 9-11. There are tons of luxury apartments there, although Laura says they are mostly empty. Laura works in an old building across West Highway (I'm not sure that's the right name) and probably for the rest of her working life will be working in a giant, tourist-infested construction zone.

The land on the west side of the highway is all landfill from the original excavation to build the twin towers. This is another picture I downloaded from the internet of a fabulous lobby (colloqually called the Crystal Palace or the Palm Court) These are real palm trees, not those fake ones like we saw out at Governor's Island. Here's a picture of Laura and me as we're ready to get on the 2 Train (but in different directions).

LEAVING THE ISLAND (MANHATTAN)

 Today we did the unthinkable.  We left the island of Manhattan.  Gasp!  And went all the way to Brooklyn, which could possibly be the end of the world. We did make a brief stop at the 9-11 memorial, which we will be visiting tomorrow, so we could pick up our tickets because we couldn't print them here. It was fortunate, because it's kind of a hassle to go to the place where you pick up the free tickets you've already ordered on line, and that place is a little bit of a hike from the actual memorial.

One picture from that area. More tomorrow when we actually go to the Memorial. The police had blocked off a part of this street to cars, apparently because there was a very minor chance there was something dangerous about this van (they're checking the underside with mirrors in this picture) but I think it was just some hapless person who parked illegally. Interestingly enough, they weren't keeping pedestrians away. Our trip to Brooklyn started out badly because John had difficulty with his metro card, which meant we had to wait 20 minutes before he could use it again, and we thought we'd use those 20 minutes to find another metro station, which turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Eventually, we were successfully on the train to Brooklyn, armed with directions of how to get from the subway to DUMBO (which stands for Directly Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) or something like that. When we got there, we were totally disoriented. Here's a number of pictures of how we spent our day in Brooklyn:

When we found DUMBO, it was much easier than the directions we were given. It was also somewhat less exciting than we had expected. I suspect this is the iconic picture of the area. (It's kind of an arts district, but not all that lively on a Monday afternoon, and the area used to be all abandoned warehouses and the like.) We actually had a good time, and did a lot of walking. We eventually walked up around the Borough Hall and checked out the pedestrian mall that I swear looks like 10th St. Modesto in the 50s. Very busy, nothing over three stories high, etc. I took a picture, but it wasn't good. We ended our little trip by having a pizza at a cute little restaurant called Bevacco.

STREET FAIR

Three things on the agenda today.  1.  Street faire.  2.  Irish event at Lincoln Center.  3.  Bach cantata at Trinity Lutheran.

Street Faire:  Fun, noisy, a bit crowded.  Lots of the same things over and over, cheap goods, African fabrics, Egyptian cotton sheets, Chinese glass masquerading as Venetian, and various ethnic foods. 

We started our experience with a Nutella crepe, and called it France.  I bought a CD of Ladysmith Black Mombazo, and called it African.  I didn't buy any of the cool Indonesian stuff that's made out of T-shirt material, or any of the fake Venetian glass beads, but I did buy something at Real Imposters, which is similar to a high end shop called Travel Jewelry for those who don't want to take their Bulgari jewels on a trip but would still like to be seen in something similar.  It was quite amusing that Real Imposters was situated right in front of Travel Jewelry. 
I'm just randomly putting in a few other pictures from the street fair. Things to look for: bakery table which had what was supposed to be the world's best brownie, but which didn't quite make it; falafel with dragonfly, red leather leaves sewn onto very thin cloth to make a shirt, Indonesian colorful bags and stuff. Next pictures are a couple of things we saw on the way over to Lincoln Center. I want this floor lamp. The polka dot building is the Dolce and Gabana store, I think, or some other fancy designer, and the ever popular Ku Klux Klan tour of New York by double decker bus. The Lincoln Center Irish program was okay, but we didn't get there at the right time for music. Strangely enough, I knew this harp group was playing, because I read it on the harplist, and as we were leaving I saw a woman carrying a harp. I asked her if she was in the harp group, and then I asked her if she was Mia (the leader of the group, whom I have never met) and she was. She said, "Do you play the harp?" I said "yes" and she said, "Come play with us. I brought an extra harp." Unfortunately, we had to be home to go to the Bach tonight. So I didn't get to add playing at Lincoln Center to my credits which include playing on Broadway and dancing in the New York theater. Oh, well. The Bach Cantata at Vespers was really nicely done, but it was VERY short, and I wasn't expecting that I was going to a church service. Too much religion, too little music. We went to Tulio afterwards and had a wonderful Greek meal, then had a tiramisu from the Europan. I'm totally sick because I'm so full. Doesn't mean I won't start pigging out all over again tomorrow, though.

SHOES

Not that we didn't do important stuff today, like go to museums and be terribly intellectual, as we always are, with learned opinions about all kinds of important topics, but today's blog is about shoes. Mostly pictures of shoes.


  We start with a really strappy sandal, which I guess is supposed to look really sexy but actually looks a lot like some kind of an orthopedic device.






  Many of these are from reeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllllllyyyyyyyy expensive looking stores on Madison Avenue, so I didn't bother to go in wearing my year-old New Balance shoes which were also soaking wet because it was pouring down rain.

Since it's July, of course, there were a few boots. These have some shiny stuff on the heels.

I had to be the frumpiest looking person on the whole East Side, but I thought theymight give me a try with these shoes, the brand of which is Jekyll Hydes. Furry in the front and spiky in the back.






 

I thought these were pretty cute, and looked like something I'd wear if my rich aunt gave them to me.

I think these are pretty nice, they actually look like fairly normal shoes, even though they are high. I find it kind of sad that now that heels are so high, they have to be marginally easier for those of us with longitudinally enhanced feet to wear than for those people with a size 6-1/2, and I've already just worn my feet out and can't even play at them.

I should have bought these, because they go with my new hair.


 

These are the piece de resistance. WOW. And where's the heel? And there's also a boot with no heel. Particularly useful for slippery streets in the winter.

Some of the pictures I took a couple of days ago in Greenwich Village. These are sort of easy walker platforms, only an inch off the ground at the lowest point. Note, they are bright colors, not the tasteful muted colors of the Upper East Side.

There's a pair of shoes in this window that's only $100. I'm not sure which pair, but there's a tiny little sign just about in the middle of the picture that says $100. I'm betting it's the pair directly to the left that looks like you could walk a whole mile in them before they fell apart.

Can't resist adding another pair I saw a day later. I like the architectural quality of these.

AND FINALLY, these are shoes I saw on a guy on the ferry last Saturday. I may wanna get me some o' these.

UP ON THE ROOF

Remember that song from the 60's or maybe 50's, called Up on the Roof?  I always loved that song.  Ever since we've been coming to New York, I've watched a roof party that her neighbors (who have a low roof) have had, where they have a little party, and then watch a movie or something on a big screen.  It always seemed so New York to me. 

Last night we got invited to one, not Martha's neighbors, but a friend of hers who lives on 49th St.  And it was fun.  First of all, the hostess, Sarah, had been a nanny for Nora Ephron and had kept in touch, so she had sweet stories about that time.  And then there was the view.  There were about 15 people there, at least two of them connected to Broadway, as was our host, and it was just a pleasant evening.  We saw an old Woody Allen movie, and they also had some video of a school in Haiti that one of Mark's (the host) friends was funding. 

The neighborhood where this building is has some sort of historic designation (it's between about 8th and 10th Avenues, so it's a low area that has spectacular views of high rises all around.  I'm just going to put up a few pictures in no particular order. 

They also had a telescope set up, but we could only look at the moon because it was a little bit overcast and coupled with the light pollution of NYC, made it impossible to see any

Earlier in the day we went to Greenwich Village, which was just kind of ho-hum, a little like going to Haight Ashbury in SF, but we went to a wonderful bakery called Mille Fuielle and had a wonderful macaron and talked to the owner who has recently moved here from France and was still busy teaching his staff how to make French pastries right. Here's an interesting item in the middle of the block on a busy street.

TOO MUCH TIME, TOO MANY CHOICES

This morning when we got up it was raining, which was nice, because that meant it had cooled down a little. John was scheduled to do some caulking in Martha's bathrooms. We went out for breakfast first, and while we were out I saw a salon that was called Extreme Color, and I thought, I've been wanting some purple stripes in my hair for awhile, might as well do it today. So he went back and made repairs and I got some colors on my hairs. Notice the nice rhyming symmetry. I like it, though unless it's kind of bright, it just makes my hair look darker. Depending on how I comb it it's very thin strands of purple, or big wide ones. When I finally came home, we sat around and chatted for awhile, read the NY Times, where I discovered that there's a fairly interesting home tour, well, actually a coop tour, of chicken houses in residential neighborhoods in Davis, and it's gone on for several years and I've never heard of it. Had to come all the way to NY to learn about a Davis thing.

  Once we finally overcame our lethargy, we thought we'd go over to the East Side to have dinner and go to the Vuillard exhibit at the Jewish museum and then the concert at the JM.

On the way to the bus, we decided to go to one of our old favorite restaurants that's on the West Side, Saigon, which seems to have finally settled its labor dispute. We've always really liked the food there, but today it was only so-so. Maybe just the wrong choice.   After we left Saigon, somewhat disappointed, we passed this sign.  Too late.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow.   

The Vuillard exhibit at the Jewish Museum was pretty small, but very interesting. This is my favorite painting. It's about 5 feet by 6 feet or so. The mother and children in this painting survived the Holocaust. Their father died at Auschwitz -- as did a number of Vuillard's subjects in this exhibit.

Then we went to the concert. The musicians were good, it was billed as a Balkan-style band, which as far as I could see meant that they wore kind of ill fitting suits and had an accordion, but then I realized I have no idea what Balkan music sounds like.

In fact, they had a very eclectic repertoire and instrumentation: trumpet, accordion, bass guitar, drums, guitar, claviola? (a keyboard instrument that you blow into) and another instrument that mainly operated by feedback. Think of sounds you might have heard on "The Twilight Zone". I'm going to try to upload a video, but it usually takes forever and isn't always successful. The concert area is set up like a nightclub with tables, and they also have some regular theater-type seating in the other half of the room. I had what is becoming a more and more common problem, which was that it was too loud and I couldn't hear it. If I put my earplugs in, which made it less painful, I couldn't understand the words. Another joy of getting older, I guess. And they had free wine, beer, and ice cream -- a sort of weird combo, but I think the ice cream might have been from some kosher place -- they had macaroon, chocolate, and matzo crunch. When we came out we remembered what we had said early in the day -- that we would take our umbrellas tonight because there would be thunderstorms. But we didn't. I think most of the thunderstorm was about from the time the concert ended until about 15 minutes after we got home. Fortunately it wasn't one of those sky-opening ones, so we weren't drenched, but 45 minutes of blow drying my hair this morning to get every strand perfectly straight was pretty much wasted. (Not that I care.)

WAR HORSE

 We only did two things today, but one was so spectacular that it overwhelms everything else.  We went to see the play War Horse.  As much as I don't like horses, I absolutely loved the play.  This is the one where the horses are puppets and even though everyone had said how good the puppets are,  they were even more amazing.  I actually felt sorry for the horses a little bit.  The play is 2 hours and 40 miutes, and I was very worried that I'd be bored but there was never even a time when I wanted to try to sneak a look at my watch. 

This is a picture I downloaded from the internet. Each full horse (there are some half horses) has three handlers. You can see the handlers at all times, and you can see some of the way they manipulate the puppets, but it's still magic. I was surprised that it had a happy ending, because I didn't think it would. After the play we walked up Columbus and had dinner at an okay Mexican restaurant called Jalapeno, and then we went to a book signing at Barnes and Noble. Can't remember his first name, but he's an economist and his last name is Stiglitz, and he was talking about the vast differences between the wealthy classes and everybody else in America. America, the first country to have a big middle class is now the only country where the middle class is disappearing. Of course this Barnes and Noble is on the upper West Side, so he was pretty much preaching to the choir. That's all I have today. Tomorrow I think we'll go to the Met (museum) and then we're going to hear One Ring Zero at the Jewish Museum. This is a Balkan inspired band which includes songs with lyrics by Paul Auster, Margaret Atwood, Dave Eggers and Neil Gaiman. I don't know the other three, but I'm fascinated by the idea of Margaret Atwood. I finally got a chance to get Sam's harp out of the case and play it. When I looked in the case, I thought it was a double strung harp because I could see two rows of tuning pins. After I got it out, I think it's an old one of those Pakistani harp-shaped instruments. Most of them are real junk. And this one seems to be, too.

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

One of the advantages as well as disadvantages of having a long time in NYC is that we don't feel any rush to do any particular thing.
Today we had plans to go see if we could get rush tix for "One Man, Two Guvnors," but that didn't work out.

With a little time on our hands we went to the garment district to look for some material to re-do the window seats in our sun porch. After a few shops we found something just perfect.
After that we decided to go to Rockefeller center to check out the little shopping mall, which was a pretty big yawn. Although, in the circles we walked around while looking for Rockefeller Center, we did go through this interesting water feature. 

I took this sort of cool picture in the subway station while we were waiting for our train. Came home and fixed a nice salmon dinner, then headed over to Central Park to hear the Knights, a pickup group of NYC musicians in a free concert in the Naumberg series. Music of Purcell, Haydn, Milhaud, and Copeland. Well, this orchestra turned out to be anything but a pickup group, or maybe it's just that there are so many wonderful musicians in NYC that even a pickup group is really good. These people really seemed like they had played together over a decent period of time.

The band shell was built in 1926, donated by a philanthropist named Naumberg, and was apparently threatened with the wrecking ball in the past few years. New Yorkers raised the money to sue the City over removing it and some money for improvements, but as usual, not enough. However, they won the case and the shell still stands. It's south of 72nd St. and a bit closer to the East Side than the West Side, but only marginally so. It faces west, and the area behind it is about half as high as the shell. This created a magical effect once twilight came, as the fireflies were blinking on and off on either side of the stage in the darkness. The music was really nice, too. Although I had expected to like the Purcell and the Haydn, what I really liked was the Milhaud and the Copeland. Go figure. They even had a harpsichord for the Purcell and Haydn, some revival plunker, but they were using amplification, so the sound was okay. There were about 500 people there and I thought it really said something about the difference in sophistication between a NY and Sacramento audience that nobody clapped between the various parts of the the Purcell, which was a suite of dances, even though the various pieces weren't listed. But by the end of the program, even though the movements in the Haydn were listed, there were several outliers who applauded between movements. Another cool, but probably unintended visual effect was the creation of shadows on the back of the band shell which clearly showed the cellist and one of the violinists. I tried to take a picture, but I was too far back, and it didn't work. For me, the best piece on the concert was the Copeland piece called Quiet City, especially because in the really pianissimo part, you could only hear the music and the insects. You really couldn't hear the traffic noise, or any sirens, or any planes going over. Toward the end of the piece, a plane did fly over, but it was appropriate. The one funny thing that happened was that the orchestra often changed configurations, and during one of those longer changes I think people thought it was the intermission, and they were standing around chatting in the aisles, and after about 4 minutes people started realizing that the musicians weren't warming up, they were actually playing the next piece. John actually got up and told the woman in front of us to sit down and stop talking. She was one of the last chatters standing. And she was pretty embarrassed. After the concert we walked back to the subway, stopped at a new frozen yogurt place and came home. Turned out to be a really nice evening.

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE, ALL AROUND THE PARK

This is going to sound pretty boring, but our main accomplishment today was to walk around the perimeter of Central Park. I figured it would take us about two hours at strolling speed, since it’s less than 6 miles, but we left at 11 and didn’t get home until 4:30.

Lake at north end of Central Park

Of course we managed to stop along the way to look at shoes, watch kids playing in the park, check out upcoming concerts at the Jewish Museum, buy a soft pretzel, eat gelato, look for the hawk (didn’t see him) buy our tickets to go see War Horse on Wednesday, look at a Noel Coward exhibit at the New York Library for the performing arts, and shop at Trader Joe’s. So I suppose all in all that was about the right amount of time.

Pretty plants on 5th Avenue  Coleus?

Gaudi-type building at north end of
Central Park on East Side

John saw in the paper that it was supposed to rain today so he carried his new umbrella around ALL day. After we left Trader Joe’s (just a mile from the apartment), it sort of started to do the merest amount of sprinkling. It was definitely not worth carrying an umbrella around all day. I was dry 5 minutes after I came back into the apartment.

Right now Martha’s group is practicing, and they have a little snack time afterward. I made a watermelon cucumber salad for the group, and am pretty much waiting around to eat.